THE 

New  (Commonwealth 
"Books 


L 

THE  WORLD  OF  STATES 


TH£    SeAZMG    S6RI6S 

C.  THE  WORLD  OF  STATES:  By 
C  DELISLE  BURNS,  M.A. 

C  THE  CHURCH  IN  THE  COM- 
MONWEALTH: By  RICHARD 
ROBERTS 

G.FREEDOM:  By  GILBERT 
CANNAN 

The  following  volumes  will  be  ready  in 

Autumn  1917: 
C,  THE  STATE  AND  INDUSTRY: 

By  G.  D.  H.  COLE,  M.A. 
C.  THE    STATE    AND    WOMAN: 

By  A.  MAUDE  ROYDEN 
€L  EDUCATION  AND  SOCIETY:  By 

T.  PERCY  NUNN,  M.A.,  D.Sc. 
C.  THE  STATE  AND  THE  CHILD : 

By  W.CLARKE  HALL 
Price  2s.  net  each  volume. 

Headley  Bros.  Publishers,  Ltd.,  Kingsway,  W.C.2 


THE  WORLD 
OF   STATES 

BY 
Q  DELISLE  BURNS 

Author  of"  Political  Ideals, "  The  Morality  of  Nations," 
"  Greek  Ideals,"  te. 


1917 
LONDON 

HEADLEY  BROS.  PUBLISHERS,  LTD, 

KINGSWAY  HOUSE 

KINGSWAY 

W.C. 


ju  • 


GENERAL  PREFACE 

THE  events  of  the  present  time  have  started  much 
serious  enquiry  into  the  validity  of  our  accepted 
institutions  and  our  traditional  habits  of  thought. 
Our  conceptions  of  the  State,  of  the  Church,  of  the  organi- 
sation of  Industry,  of  the  Status  of  Woman  in  the  com- 
monwealth, and  of  many  other  things  have  been  directly 
challenged;  and  it  is  commonly  acknowledged  that  a 
frank  and  thorough-going  examination  of  our  current  pos- 
tulates,political,  religious, economic  andsocial,is  urgently 
called  for.    This  series  is  intended  to  be  a  tentative  con- 
tribution to  the  discussion  of  the  problems  thus  raised. 

The  writers  of  these  volumes  do  not  profess  to  have 
a  complete  philosophy  of  reconstruction  ;  nor  habe  they 
endeavoured  to  co-ordinate  their  thoughts  into  a  coherent 
polity.  'They  treat  of  matters  upon  which  they  are  not 
all  agreed;  but  they  agree  that  Society  should  be  organised 
with  a  Ivievp  to  the  free  development  of  all  the  finer  interests 
and  activities  of  men,  and  that  such  organisation  must  take 
account  of  local  and  spiritual  differences.  Apart  from  this 
general  agreement,  they  have  worked  out  their  several 
theses  independently  and  are  severally  alone  responsible 
for  the  opinions  expressed  in  the  volumes  published  under 
their  names. 

The  volumes  in  the  series  will  coVer  the  main  subjects 
relative  to  the  function  of  the  State.  Those  already 
planned  will  treat  of  the  State  in  its  relation  to  other 
states,  to  religion,  to  industry,  to  society,  to  woman,  to 
the  individual,  to  art,  education  and  crime. 

C.  VELISLEWURNS 
TtJCHARD  ROBERTS 

380704 


AUTHOR'S   PREFACE 


IT  may  seem  that  world-politics  is  too  vast  and 
complicated  a  subject  to  be  dealt  with  in  a  book 
so  small  as  this.  But  it  should  be  remembered 
that  the  present  political  situation  is  only  a 
momentary  stage  in  the  history  of  a  race  which 
inhabits  a  small  planet.  Two  popular  ideas  are 
misleading — one  that  the  policy  of  our  own  state 
is  simple  or  that  it  is  the  expression  of  one  definite 
purpose;  the  other  that  men  and  customs  are  so 
various  as  to  be  unintelligible.  Against  these 
ideas  we  urge  that  the  policy  of  any  one  state  is 
due  to  a  complexity  of  different  and  sometimes 
conflicting  passions  and  ideas;  and,  on  the  other 
handy  that  all  men  and  all  their  customs  have 
fundamental  similarities.  That  is  the  excuse  for 
treating  the  problems  of  world-politics  as  those  of 
internal  policy  are  already  treated. 

We  do  not  propose,  however,  to  deal  with  the 
whole  of  this  subject.  Our  purpose  is  very 
limited.  We  shall  omit  the  descriptive  analysis 
of  institutions  and  the  record  of  state-actions,  and 
we  shall  also  omit  the  problems  of  administration 
in  undeveloped  countries,  all  of  which  would  have 
to  be  dealt  with  in  a  treatment  of  the  subject  with 
any  pretence  at  being  exhaustive.  But  we  shall 
confine  our  attention  to  the  emotional  and  Intel- 
lectual  forces  or  tendencies  which  underlie  the 
elaborate  political  and  social  structure  of  the 
present  world.  And  this  is  done  not  because  we 
can  afford  to  be  ignorant  of  the  actual  methods 


now  used  in  inter-state  politics,  but  because  we 
wish  to  reduce  all  the  fundamental  issues  to  terms 
of  men,  women,  and  children.  We  are  theorists, 
but  even  in  theory  the  establishment  of  political 
humanism  is  the  greatest  need  of  the  present, 
and  in  practice  political  humanism  would  make 
obsolete  the  decayed  Conservatisms  and  shabby 
Liberalisms  of  the  past.  For  we  consider  chiefly 
men,  women,  and  children  in  order  that  they  may 
be  less  enslaved  by  primitive  desires  and  obsolete 
ideas  and  freer  to  achieve  the  promise  of  their 
finer  dreams. 

C.  DELISLE   BURNS. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER. 

I.  THE  STATE  IN  THE  WORLD : 

The  states  of  the  world  depend  upon  the 
groupings  of  men.  They  have  progressed 
in  organisation,  but  each  has  been  reformed 
by  its  citizens  in  isolation  from  others. 
Meantime  the  world  has  changed.  Men  of 
all  groups  are  brought  more  closely  into  con- 
tact. Every  state,  therefore,  is  naturally 
affected  by  being  in  contact  with  other  states  1-17 

II.  POLITICS     AND     FOREIGN 

POLICY:  The  contact  of  states  is  con- 
trolled in  foreign  policy  by  actions  and  ideas 
which  imply  two  opposing  views.  One  is 
that  each  state  has  absolutely  distinct  inte- 
rests, the  other  that  all  have  common  inte- 
rests. Policy  should  be  based  upon  local  or 
departmental  "  sovereignty  "  and  co-opera- 
tion between  governments  in  the  increasing 
number  of  common  interests  -  l%~35 

III.  NATIONALITY:    The    passions    and 
ideas  of  nationality  appear  not  to  be  amen- 
able to  a  calculated  plan  in  foreign  policy. 
They  divide  men  more  deeply  than  differ- 
ences of  administration.    But  nationality  has 
many  meanings,  and  in  its  finer  meaning  it 
would  divide  men  without  creating  hostility 
between    them.     The  state   should  appeal 

to  this  finer  sense  of  nationality  36-5 2 


CHAPTER. 

IV.  ECONOMICS:  Economic  interests 
divide  states,  and  the  economic  is  closely 
connected  with  the  political  interests  of 
men.  But  the  policy  of  economic  isolation 
is  not  politically  sound.  Neither  completely 
"  free  "  trade  nor  protected  trade  is  possible 
as  a  basis  for  justice  and  liberty.  The  only 
solution  seems  to  be  the  control  of  trade 
and  investment  by  some  inter-state  authority  53-7 1 

V.  DEFENCE:  The  danger  remains  which 
arises  from  the  primitive  passions  of  men. 
The  past  cannot  be  deleted  :  armies  and 
navies  and  the  desire  for  domination  over 
others  are  real  facts.  But  security  can  be 
attained  by  other  means  than  defence.  The 
elimination  of  the  danger  is  the  true  aim  or 
political  as  contrasted  with  military  concep- 
tions. And  the  political  means  of  attaining 
security  is  the  organisation  of  inter-state 
relations  -  72-88 

VI.  CO-OPERATION  BETWEEN 
STATES  :  The  beginning  of  inter-state 
organisation  is  to  be  found  in  Diplomacy,  the 
Postal  Union,  treaties,  alliances  and  ententes. 
States  have  begun  to  co-operate  :  and  a 
sane  foreign  policy  will  both  increase  the 
number  of  common  tasks  and  initiate  the 
formation  of  "  polities "  of  two  or  more 
states  for  special  purposes  -  89-105 


CHAPTER. 

VII.  INTERNATIONAL  CONFER- 
ENCES AND  LEAGUES:  There 
are  two  programmes  immediately  prac- 
ticable: one  in  the  development,  with  cer- 
tain modifications,  of  the  Hague  Conferences. 
A  long  history  lies  behind  these.  The  other 
plan  is  the  formation  of  a  League  of  States 
with  a  Council  of  Conciliation-  -  106-123 

VIII.  WORLD  ORGANISATION:  What- 
ever practical  programme  is  adopted,  it  is 
important  that  we  should  control  social 
forces  and  especially  master  the  state- 
organisation.  World  -  organisation  based 
upon  a  new  political  attitude  will  forestall  , 
the  growth  of  destructive  forces  and  free  the 
mind  for  a  finer  civilisation  -  -  124-143 


CHAPTER  I:  THE  STATE  IN  THE 
WORLD 

NO  man  lives  or  thinks  alone.  In  every 
man  are  his  ancestors,  whose  passions  and 
thoughts  have  shaped  his  body  and  his 
mind.  Round  every  man  are  his  contemporaries, 
intimately  affecting  what  he  does  or  thinks, 
since,  although  he  may  avoid  them,  even  in  driving 
him  away  they  guide  the  current  of  his  life.  The 
hermit  carries  his  race  with  him  into  the  desert; 
and  the  genius  stands  upon  the  shoulders  of  the 
common  man.  And  rising  out  of  every  man  is  the 
future  race,  whether  he  has  children  or  affects  the 
future  by  his  thought  or  his  thoughtlessness. 
Thus  with  any  one  man  the  whole  race  lives  and 
thinks. 

But  men  are  not  only  connected  with  all  other 
men  living  and  dead,  they  are  divided  into  various 
groups;  for  men  are  bound,  one  to  the  other,  by 
passion  or  interest  or  blood  or  by  submission  to 
the  same  law  or  by  inhabiting  the  same  corner  of 
the  earth,  and  they  are  separated  from  other  groups 
of  men  by  differences  of  blood  and  tradition  and 
custom  and  locality.  Among  the  many  groupings 
of  men  some  are  called  states.  Their  nature  is 
still  in  dispute  among  philosophers;  for  some 
appear  to  believe  that  there  is  a  super-personal 
entity  existing  beside  or  along  with  the  subjects  or 
citizens  of  a  state.  Others  think  of  the  state  as 
one  among  many  different  groupings,  having  an 
existence  perhaps  more  important,  but  the  same  in 
kind,  as  a  goose-club,  or  a  church,  or  a  trade 
union.  This  fundamental  issue  we  need  not 


THE  WORLD  OF  STATES 


discuss  here,  for  most  men  know  by  experience  the 
activities  of  what  is  usually  called  a  state.  States 
unite  men  by  an  apparatus  of  law  and  administra- 
tion; but  their  nature  cannot  be  understood  by  a 
mere  analysis  of  outward  regulations.  Their 
character  can  be  distinguished  by  an  attitude  of 
mind  or  by  habitual  action  of  their  citizens  or 
subjects,  which  may  be  hardly  at  all  reflected  in 
their  laws.  A  state  includes  the  whole  body  of 
those  who  choose  or  acquiesce  in  an  independent 
administration,  the  purpose  of  which  is  believed 
to  be  justice  and  liberty.  More  men  acquiesce 
than  choose,  for  free  choice  is  rarely  exercised 
and  by  few  men.  Most  men  are  born  into  a 
group  already  organised  as  a  state,  membership  in 
which  they  accept  unthinkingly.  But  choice  or 
acquiescence  creates  a  peculiar  relationship  be- 
tween citizens  which  lies  somewhere  between 
affection  and  calculation  of  interest. 

There  are  about  forty  such  states,  and  the 
tendency  since  the  Renaissance  has  been  to  reduce 
their  number.  States  have  coalesced,  as  when 
Germany  was  united  in  1871;  states  have  been 
destroyed,  as  when  the  Orange  Free  State  was  made 
British;  and  although  new  states  have  appeared 
during  the  nineteenth  century,  in  South  America, 
for  example,  and  later  in  the  separation  of  Norway 
from  Sweden,  the  general  tendency  is  that  larger 
and  fewer  states  should  exist,  since  communication 
over  wider  areas  is  increasingly  possible  and  unity 
of  administration  is  generally  desired. 


THE  STATE  IN  THE  WORLD 


Within  all  these  states,  old  and  new,  changes 
have  occurred  in  the  meanings  given  to  justice  and 
liberty.  These  are  names  for  the  relation  of  men, 
one  to  another,  and  they  are  desired  or  worked  for 
because  of  the  men  and  women  who  without  them 
would  lack  some  possibility  of  being  all  that  they 
might  be.  Within  each  state,  therefore,  there 
have  been  efforts  to  make  the  opportunities  of  life 
greater,  or  there  have  been  reactions  and  apathy 
when  some  attempt  has  failed.  The  states  of  the 
world  are  in  that  sense  separate  and  isolated 
experiments  towards  enlarging  the  possibilities  or 
securing  the  conditions  of  civilised  life;  and  within 
every  state  those  who  valued  what  had  been  done 
have  been  inclined  to  suppose  that  in  the  devices 
of  their  native  administration  they  beheld  the 
features  of  the  ideal  state  or  the  true  "  essence  " 
of  the  state.  They  have  wanted  more  of  that 
good  thing;  or  they  have  adored,  as  Blackstone  i 
did,  the  established  order  to~wfiich  they  felt  they 
owed  security  and  happiness. 

On  the  other  hand,  those  who  felt  the  limitations 
imposed  on  them  by  the  social  organisation  of 
their  time  saw  in  the  state  into  which  they  had  been 
born  an  evil  thing.  Their  effort  was  to  lessen  the 
burden  of  regulations  of  which  they  felt  the 
pressure  and  from  which  they  derived  no 
advantage.  So  the  early  Utilitarians  in  England 
spoke  of  the  limits  of  state  "  interference,"  and 
they  aimed  at  the  abolition  of  established  rules. 
It  was  their  chief  concern  to  find  a  place  for  the 

B2 


THE  WORLD  OF  STATES 


new  energies  of  the  early  nineteenth  century  in 
England;  and  elsewhere  in  the  states  of  the  world 
there  was  the  same  shaking  of  the  old  structure 
of  society. 

A  third  school,  in  nearly  every  state,  arose  in 
the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century.  The  pro- 
grammes and  theories  of  this  school  need  not 
concern  us  here;  but  these  new  thinkers  seem  to 
have  felt  neither  devotion  to  the  established  order 
nor  irritation  at  regulations.  They  aimed  at 
establishing  new  and  more  generally  beneficial 
rules  than  those  which  had  been  inherited  or  had 
been  lately  destroyed.  This  movement  in  every 
state-group  was  usually  called  Socialism,  and  it 
was  aimed  chiefly  at  the  adoption  of  new  and 
untried  organisation  to  correct  the  savage  com- 
petition of  industrialism.* 

In  all  these  social  movements  our  interest  here 
involves  that  we  should  see  one  peculiar  feature. 
The  political  energies  and  the  political  thinking  of 
most  men  were  confined  to  the  limits  of  the  par- 
ticular state  to  which  they  belonged.  This,  indeed, 
like  all  general  statements,  does  not  take  account  of 
exceptions;  but  the  rule  of  political  life  was  clearly 
that  indicated.  Men  thought  and  acted  politically 
within  frontiers.  They  saw  what  was  good  or  bad, 
what  must  be  maintained,  abolished  or  established, 
within  one  state.  The  conditions  of  life  which 


*  These  three  movements,  as  far  as  England  is  con- 
cerned, are  admirably  rendered  in  Dicey 's  Law  and  Public 
Opinion  in  England  during  the  Nineteenth  Century. 


THE  STATE  IN  THE  WORLD 


they  admired  or  opposed  were  conditions  in  their 
immediate  neighbourhood  and  under  the  particular 
administration  into  which  they  had  been  born; 
and  when  any  reformer  or  conservative  looked 
"  abroad  "  he  felt  that  "  abroad  "  as  an  isolated 
and  distinct  social  world.  Even  the  apparent 
exception  to  this  general  rule,  which  is  usually 
called  Internationalism,  did  not  concern  itself  with 
the  political  relations  of  the  states  of  the  world. 
It  aimed  rather  at  turning  men's  minds  altogether 
away  from  the  divisions  of  the  race  by  states.  It 
was  inspired  by  the  idea  of  a  common  humanity; 
but  neglected  the  difference  of  diverse  races  and 
governments.  The  political  mind  of  the  world 
was  a  frontier-mind,  and  the  international  mind 
was  unpolitical. 

Meantime,  however,  states  existed  side  by  side 
in  the  world,  and  the  various  governments  had  to 
pursue  some  line  of  conduct.  It  was  impossible 
to  neglect  the  fact  that  good  or  bad  government 
in  a  neighbouring  state  was  important  for  the 
prosperity  of  every  state.  And  there  was  also  the 
general  feeling  inherited  from  the  Renaissance  that 
the  proper  duty  of  each  government  was  to  keep 
to  itself.  Thus,  while  foreign  ministers  had  behind 
them  an  ancient  belief  and  acted  only  upon  that, 
within  nearly  every  state  social  and  political 
changes  were  taking  place,  and  the  interest,  and 
therefore  the  thought,  of  the  time  left  "  external  " 
policy  to  tradition.  Thought  on  foreign  policy 
was  uninspired  by  any  widely  felt  interest,  and  it 


THE  WORLD  OF  STATES 


was  generally  the  thought  of  officials,  who  were 
less  concerned  with  what  to  do  than  with  how  to 
do  it. 

Such,  in  brief,  has  been  the  recent  history  which 
has  formed  the  present  relation  between  the  states 
of  the  world.  Or  perhaps  we  ought  rather  to  say 
that  such  has  been  the  history  of  men's  relation  to 
their  fellows  who  belonged  to  a  different  adminis- 
tration; for  it  is,  after  all,  the  relation  of  peoples, 
and  not  of  governments,  which  is  of  primary 
importance  and  interest.  And  in  this  matter  what 
is  most  important  is  the  small  proportion  of 
thought  and  popular  interest  which  has  been  given 
to  the  contact  between  states  by  comparison  with 
the  intellectual  labour  on  internal  political  reform. 
It  is  not  to  be  wondered  at,  therefore,  that  although 
in  internal  structure  states  have  changed  very 
much  since  Athens  was  great,  in  external  policy 
the  same  actions  and  the  same  beliefs  are  pro- 
minent as  in  the  earliest  times.  The  states  which 
at  present  exist  differ  in  their  methods  of  govern- 
ment, but  hardly  at  all  in  their  external  policy, 
and  this  is,  indeed,  a  sign  of  the  little  thought 
which  has  been  devoted  to  that  part  of  political 
life;  for  a  more  common  interest  in  the  subject 
would  have  probably  led  to  diversity  in  the 
purposes  aimed  at,  if  not  in  the  methods  used. 

As  a  preliminary  to  further  discussion  we  must 
consider  the  distinction  and  the  likeness  between 
the  internal  administration  in  different  states.  But 
the  ancient  divisions  of  monarchy  and  republic,  or 


THE  STATE  IN  THE  WORLD 


autocracy  and  democracy,  will  not  be  adequate  for 
estimating  the  part  played  by  states  in  the  lives 
of  men. 

The  most  important  distinction  for  our  purpose 
here  is  that  into  national  and  imperial  states. 
Neither  name  is  adequate,  for  no  state  is  com- 
pletely identical  in  its  frontiers  with  the  limits  of 
any  one  nationality;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  an 
Empire  seems,  in  our  present  language,  to  mean 
anything  from  a  military  autocracy  over  peoples  of 
diverse  races  to  a  democratic  exploitation  of  one 
people  by  another.  If  the  states  of  the  world  be 
classified,  therefore,  as  national  and  imperial,  we 
shall  Have  to  be  satisfied  with  placing  Denmark, 
Norway,  Chile,  Siam,  and  such  states  in  one 
category,  and  FrMc^J&a:.many^Gr£a.t  Britain,  and 
the  United_Slate§Jin.,angth^rJu.  For  in  all  these 
latter  states,  there  are  subject  peoples  whose 
national  character  or  tribal  spirit  has  no  effect  upon 
the  administration.,  Holland,  as  a  sovereign  state, 
is  an  example  of  the  difficulty  of  classifying,  since 
in  one  sense  it  is  a  national  state,  but  vast  numbers 
of  tribes  in  the  East  are  subject  to  the  Dutch.* 
And  this  fact  of  diverse  races  under  the  same 
administration  is  more  important  in  the  contact 
between  states  than  the  fact  that  there  is  in  this 
or  that  state  more  or  less  equality  of  power  among 
the  members  of  the  dominant  race.  For  govern- 

*  See  The  Statesman's  Year  Book  for  the  bare  facts  as 
to  the  number  of  states  and  the  differences  in  their 
populations. 


THE  WORLD  OF  STATES 


ments  in  states  which  are  imperial,  in  the  vague 
modern  sense  of  the  word,  are  naturally  inclined 
to  be  nervous  as  to  security  of  possession. 

The  most  important  fact,  however,  for  the 
consideration  of  world  policy  is  the  likeness,  and 
not  the  difference,  between  states.  It  may  be  that 
all  states  are  organisations,  the  ostensible  purpose 
of  which  is  justice  and  liberty.  It  may  even  be 
said  that  it  is  the  nature  or  "  essence  "  of  the  state 
to  aim  at  justice  and  liberty,  in  the  sense  in  which 
the  "  essence  "  of  an  acorn  is  to  be  an  oak.  The 
ideal  is  not  merely  confused  with  the  real  when 
philosophers  say  that  the  state  is  "  a  general  will  " 
for  justice  and  liberty;  for  there  is  a  close  relation 
between  what  a  thing  at  any  moment  "  really  "  is 
and  what  it  aims  at  being.*  But,  to  avoid  meta- 
physics, it  is  sufficient  if  we  say  that  all  states  are 
maintained,  by  indolence  perhaps  or  docility,  in  the 
belief  that  justice  and  liberty  are  what  this  or  that 
administration  seems  to  secure.  It  is  impossible  to 
deny  the  admiration  of  all  men  for  justice  and 
liberty,  although  their  social  position  and  even 
their  private  income  seems  to  make  a  difference  to 
the  meaning  they  give  to  the  words.  Many  are 

*  For  those  who  care  to  embark  upon  metaphysics,  it 
may  be  said  that  we  have  here  the  relation  of  the  Platonic 
Idea  (our  "  ideal  ")  of  the  state  to  the  Aristotelian  "  Uni- 
versal "  (the  thing  in  which  one  actual  state  is  like 
another)  or  Form  of  the  state.  The  best  modern  rendering 
of  philosophical  thought  on  the  nature  of  the  state  is,  as  far 
as  I  know,  Henri  Michel's  L'ldte  de  rEtat.  It  is  deficient 
in  the  traditional  manner,  because  it  neglects  entirely  the 
external  relations  of  the  state. 


THE  STATE  IN  THE  WORLD 


inclined  to  doubt  that  despots  or  the  governing 
classes  believe  in  justice  or  liberty;  but  this  seems 
to  be  unkind,  for  they  are  as  honest  in  their 
professions  as  other  men.  The  trouble  is  that 
justice  can  easily  be  made  to  mean  "  keeping  what 
we  have,"  and  liberty  "  the  possibility  of  getting 
more."  That  is  the  usual  meaning  of  the  words  in 
inter-state  or  diplomatic  relations,  in  which  sphere 
justice  is  sometimes  called  "  the  status  quo,"  anci 
liberty  "  the  right  to  natural  expansion."  These 
are  not  cynical  cloaks  for  ambition.  They  are  the 
creeds  of  the  simple-minded.  And  they  are  the 
results  of  a  long  development,  in  which  thought 
and  imagination  have  played  a  very  small  part. 

In  all  states,  therefore,  we  find  a  fundamental 
likeness,  in  that  government  aims  chiefly  at 
maintaining,  rather  than  at  changing,  the  present 
social  and  economic  structure  of  society — not 
because  government  is  in  the  hands  of  those  who 
benefit  by  such  structure,  but  because  the  majority 
of  men  see  no  alternative  to  the  present  situation 
except  chaos.  That  seems  to  be  the  reason  why 
in  every  state  attacks  upon  private  property,  for 
example,  or  upon  the  wage-system  are  opposed  by 
the  administrative  officials,  with  the  apparent 
approval  of  the  majority  even  of  the  landless  and 
the  wage-earners.  The  fear  of  chaos  is  reasonable; 
and,  so  long  as  the  political  imagination  cannot  set 
before  us  a  third  possibility,  neither  chaos  nor  the 
present  situation,  so  long  will  the  state  be  a 
mechanism  for  continuing  the  inherited  economic 


THE  WORLD  OF  STATES 


or  social  structure.  In  this  sense  every  state  exists 
by  the  will  of  its  citizens  or  subjects,  as  slavery 
may  be  supported  by  slaves  lest  worse  should 
befall  them.* 

A  generous  but  too  uncritical  idealism  maintains 
that  this  is  not  the  nature  of  the  state,  and  that  the 
evils  of  the  present  political  system  are  accidental. 
It  may  be  so.  At  any  rate,  the  evils  are  at  present 
both  real  and  important,  and  they  exist  in  every 
state.  There  must  be  some  third  possibility  besides 
maintaining  what  exists  and  destroying  the  state 
altogether,  for  we  have  no  intention  whatever  of 
going  back  to  political  chaos.  That  needs  to  be 
said,  lest  anyone  should  suppose  that  an  analysis  of 
the  state  system  which  leads  to  its  being  criticised 
adversely  is  therefore  a  condemnation  of  all 
possible  law.  The  fact  remains  that  every  state  at 
present  is  resisting  rather  than  promoting  social 
development. 

In  the  second  place,  every  state  is  ruled  and 
administered  by  a  very  few,  selected  from  a 
small  social  class.  Ninety-nine  hundredths  of  the 
inhabitants  of  the  earth  are  labourers  with  their 
hands,  and  they  have  not  between  them  one- 
hundredth  of  the  political  power  of  the  world  of 
states.  This  is  not  a  complaint  or  a  grievance : 
it  is  a  statement  of  fact.  Many  will  say  that  the 

*  With  this  is  connected  the  idea  of  a  real  will,  which 
Rousseau  first  emphasised.  As  an  abstract  theory  of  state- 
allegiance  the  idea  of  a  real  will  does  not  seem  to  allow  for 
the  distinction  between  choice  and  acquiescence.  It  is  also 
misleading  in  making  the  state  seem  to  'be  a  large  person. 


THE  STATE  IN  THE  WORLD 


ninety-nine  hundredths  have  not  the  knowledge  or 
ability  required  for  politics;  many  will  say  that 
their  interests  are  considered  and  actually  attained 
by  the  few  who  rule.  That  does  not  concern  us 
for  the  moment.  The  important  fact  is  that  in 
all  states  (democratic  or  otherwise)  the  majority  of 
men  have  no  say  in  administration  or  policy;  and 
even  the  modern  devices  by  which  they  may  be 
persuaded  that  they  have  some  free  choice  cannot 
disguise  that  fact  from  any  candid  thinker. 

But  the  analysis  of  state-structure  which  reveals 
these  evils  in  the  administration  of  every  state 
should  not  blind  us  to  the  good  which  is  also  to 
be  found  in  established  law  and  government.  This 
other  side  of  the  facts  is  important.  We  stand  at 
the  beginning,  and  not  at  the  end,  of  political 
experiments.  The  state,  as  it  now  exists,  is  only 
a  first  attempt;  and  it  has  achieved  something. 
Politicians  are  indeed  annoyed  if  one  tells  them 
that  they  are  doing  very  well  considering  the  early 
date  of  their  expedients;  and  their  dignity  is  hurt 
if  one  compliments  them  on  their  undoubted 
success  in  the  control  of  sewage  and  organisation 
of  "  defence.55  But  the  candid  observer  of  political 
development  must  see  how  excellent  these  first 
experiments  at  justice  and  liberty  are.  We  must 
have  more  of  whatever  good  has  been  at  present 
attained,  and  there  is  some  hope  that  the  present 
state-system  may  be  changed  into  something  as 
different  from  what  it  now  is  as  that  is  different 
from  tribal  chaos.  The  good  of  the  present  is  the 


THE  WORLD  OF  STATES 


only  basis  for  the  future  good;  and  we  can  easily 
see  that  law  and  government  give  a  certain  freedom 
to  some,  that  order  and  stability  are  possibilities 
for  the  higher  activities  of  man,  and  that  in  every 
state  the  oppression  of  some  by  others  is  due 
rather  to  ignorance  and  unimaginativeness  than  to 
any  positive  ill-will.  It  is  not,  therefore,  with  any 
desire  to  weaken  the  state-system  or  to  destroy 
allegiance  to  the  state  that  we  remark  upon  the 
evil  as  well  as  the  good  in  the  internal  structure  of 
states.  We  are  neither  lawyers  nor  anarchists. 

Let  us  now  turn  to  the  wider  social  world,  of 
which  state  government  and  state  policy  form  only 
a  part.*  This  is  the  world  of  economic  supply  and 
demand,  of  religious  enthusiasm,  of  artistic 
achievement,  of  scientific  advance,  and  of  formless 
affections  and  hopes.  In  that  wider  world  political 
administration  and  political  thought  play  a  great 
and  important  part,  but  the  wider  social  world  has 
life  and  development  of  its  own.  Religion  may 
develop,  for  example,  while  political  life  decays. 
In  the  recent  past  a  transformation  has  occurred, 
the  result  of  which  it  is  difficult  to  foresee.  The 
world  of  men  is  now  one  whole.  Hitherto,  and 
until  perhaps  about  a  hundred  years  ago,  different 
centres  of  civilisation  were  hardly  connected. 
China  and  Japan  were  practically  untouched  by 
European  thought  and  commercial  activity;  and 
*  See  Graham  Wallas 's  The  Great~Society  for  some  of  the 
leading  features  of  this  new  social  world.  This  needs  to  be 
supplemented  by  a  study  of  the  non-economic  and  non- 
political  contacts  of  men,  which  are  also  world-wide. 


THE  STATE  IN  THE  WORLD  13 

even  within  any  one  type  of  civilisation  the  sub- 
centres,  such  as  New  York,  Paris,  Berlin,  and 
London,  were  more  independent  than  they  now  are 
in  normal  times.  Even  if  we  think  of  civilisation 
chiefly  in  the  terms  of  economics,  the  world  is 
more  united  now  than  it  was.  But  if  we  give 
civilisation  a  wider  meaning,  and  include  in  it 
intellectual  or  artistic  achievement,  we  should 
recognise  that  one  kind  of  science  is  taught  and 
used  everywhere,  that  there  is  little  disagreement 
as  to  the  main  facts  of  recent  human  history,  and 
that  the  art  of  every  section  of  the  world  is  begin- 
ning to  affect  every  other.  We  are  not  referring 
to  the  position  or  knowledge  of  scientists  and 
artists,  but  to  the  achievements  in  which  common 
men  share.  There  is  a  common  science  in  an 
electric  bulb,  or  in  a  turbine  engine,  or  in  the 
microscopic  diagnosis  of  disease.  There  is  a 
common,  even  if  it  is  a  trivial,  art  in  the  hotels  of 
the  world  and  in  the  clothing  which  men  now 
adopt.  These  unnoticed,  because  familiar,  unities 
survive  political  crises,  and  they  are  increasing  by 
the  mere  weight  of  the  fact  that  they  make  life 
easier.  They  are  signs  and  also  sources  of  a  new 
social  world. 

Within  this  changed  social  world  the  old  institu- 
tions continue  to  exist  and  to  develop.  The 
Christian  Churches,  the  Mohammedan  sects,  and 
the  schools  of  Buddhism  or  Chinese  Moralism  live 
on  after  the  circumstances  in  which  they  first  arose 
have  passed  even  out  of  the  memories  of  men. 


14  THE  WORLD  OF  STATES 

And,  although  many  of  the  characteristics  of  these 
different  organised  groupings  of  men  are  due  to 
their  earlier  history  and  to  the  circumstances  of  a 
very  different  earlier  time,  yet  they  all  show  the 
effects  of  the  new  social  situation.  The  Roman 
Church  was  once  the  only  religious  body  in 
Western  Europe,  and  its  officials  often  behave,  in 
Catholic  countries,  as  though  this  were  still  the 
case.  But  the  Cardinals  use  motor-cars  and  the 
Pope  telegraphs.  The  policy  of  the  Church  has 
to  take  account,  also,  of  the  existence  of  many 
independent  Christian  bodies.  Even  Moham- 
medanism has  a  modern  apologetic.* 

It  would  be  unreasonable  to  expect  that  in  the 
new  social  world  the  states  of  the  world  should 
have  remained  unaffected;  for  new  commerce  and 
new  finance  and  new  world-interests  would 
naturally  affect  the  institutions  which  provide  the 
basic  conditions  of  civilised  life  more  than  those 
institutions  which  exist  chiefly  for  aspiration  and 
unworldliness.  And,  indeed,  if  we  compare  the 
English  state  as  it  now  is  with  the  English  state 
of  the  sixteenth  or  eighteenth  century  we  can  see 
that  a  change  has  occurred.  Naturally,  its  funda- 
mental character  has  not  been  changed,  since  it  is 
one  growing  institution.  There  is  still  a  Common 
Law,  an  unwritten  and  non-rigid  Constitution,  and 
a  unitary,  as  opposed  to  a  federal,  administration. 
But  change  has  occurred,  as  it  has  in  every  state; 

*  cf.  The  history  of  Behaism  or  Babism,  especially  as 
rendered  in  Prof.  E.  G.  Browne's  article  on  the  subject  in 
Hasting's  Dictionary  of  Religion  and  Ethics. 


THE  STATE  IN  THE  WORLD  15 

and  the  changes  which  are  most  striking  are  those 
which  are  due  to  the  new  social  world.  Some  of 
these  are  internal  changes,  as  in  the  control  of 
government  by  industrial  and  financial  magnates 
by  contrast  with  landowners;  and  some  are  changes 
in  external  relations  or  policy.  An  elaborate 
apparatus  of  diplomacy  has  grown  up,  and  Govern- 
ment offices,  such  as  the  Board  of  Trade,  have 
much  concern  with  the  existence  of  other  states. 

These  changes  in  external  structure  have 
occurred  in  every  state,  largely  because  the  new 
social  world  keeps  all  states  in  continuous  contact. 
And  such  changes  reflect  a  change  in  the  psycho- 
logical attitude  of  citizens,  for  new  administrative 
offices  are  signs  of  newly-felt  needs.  The  mere 
pressure  of  new  circumstances  has  compelled 
attention  to  the  relation  between  states;  and 
thought  has  elaborated  an  old  mechanism  and 
created  a  new.  The  place  of  the  state,  therefore, 
in  the  wider  social  world  for  which  states  provide 
order  and  liberty  can  no  longer  be  understood  with- 
out direct  reference  to  external  contact  and  foreign 
policy.  And  the  study  of  these  is  part  of  the  study 
of  the  nature  of  the  state  even  from  the  philo- 
sophical or  psychological  point  of  view,  since  the 
growth  of  new  administrative  offices  shows  that 
the  modern  state  is  very  different  from  the  states 
or  the  older  world. 

i  We  conclude  therefore  (i)  that  men  are  grouped 
In  many  organisations,  of  which  some  are  states; 
•(2)  that  these  states  have  been  developed  by  pro- 


1 6  THE  WORLD  OF  STATES 

gressive  thought,  which  has  been  confined  in  the 
main  to  domestic  or  internal  policy;  (3)  that  all 
states,  in  spite  of  recent  reforms,  are  still  ruled  by 
the  few  and  are  organisations  for  the  maintenance) 
rather  than  the  change,  of  the  inherited  social  and 
economic  structure  of  society;  and  (4)  that  a  change 
has  occurred  in  recent  times  which  has  given  more 
importance  than  before  to  the  external  policy  of 
states  and  to  the  character  of  the  government  of 
each  in  its  contact  with  others.  It  seems  to  follow 
that  the  nature  of  the  state  in  its  external  relations 
needs  to  be  studied,  and  that  an  analysis  should  be 
attempted  of  the  emotional  and  intellectual  forces 
which  unite  and  divide  the  states  of  the  world. 
This  subject  is  of  increasing  importance  to  the 
ordinary  citizen,  if  social  change  is  likely  to  con- 
tinue in  the  same  direction  as  that  followed  during 
the  last  century.  For  either  the  state  will  be  made 
to  fit  into  the  new  social  order,  or  it  will  obstruct 
the  growth  of  that  order  and  therefore  limit  or 
destroy  the  new  conveniences  of  life  (not  to  refer 
to  anything  nobler),  or,  thirdly,  the  older  and 
isolated  state  will  emerge  supreme  upon  the  ruins 
of  the  civilised  world.  The  bare  possibility  of  such 
results  is  an  excuse  for  immediate  thought  upon 
the  contact  of  states. 

For  such  study,  however,  a  form  of  realism  in 
thought  must  be  combined  with  idealism  in 
feeling.  We  must  feel  deeply,  or  our  thought  will 
lead  nowhere;  and  we  must  see  clearly,  or  our  de- 
sires will  mislead  us.  The  tendency  of  those  who 


THE  STATE  IN  THE  WORLD  17 

desire  a  better  world  is  to  live  too  much  in  the 
world  of  imagination;  and  even  the  average  man 
does  not  like  to  see  things  as  they  are.  For  there 
is  in  him  an  ingenuous  idealism,  which  Henry 
James  described  in  Madame  de  Mauve s  :  "  Even 
after  experience  had  given  her  a  hundred  rude 
hints,  she  found  it  easier  to  believe  in  fables,  if 
they  had  a  certain  nobleness  of  meaning,  than  in 
well-attested  but  sordid  facts.35  For  the  same 
reason  many  men  believe  in  the  excellence  of  the 
only  state  they  know — their  own — and  imagine 
thaMhe  world  would  be  filled  with  angels  if  every- 
one were  like  themselves.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
political  realist  attends  too  much  to  what  is  being 
done  aviid  too  little  to  what  men  desire  to  do.  He 
sees  actions — at  least,  those  of  other  people — 
divorced  from  their  intentions,  and  he  considers 
methods  rather  than  ideals.  He  rarely  shows  any 
imagination  in  suggesting  new  ideals  for  which  we 
should  work  or  die.  He  has  hardly  ever  been  able 
to  conceive  of  any  alternatives  but  chaos  and 
tinkering  at  the  present  system ;  and  he  accepts  the 
purposes  for  which  men  have  undoubtedly  lived 
and  died  in  the  past  as  the  only  imaginable  causes 
of  enthusiasm.  But  there  are  a  thousand  pos- 
sibilities open.  The  field  is  unmapped.  New 
purposes  are  our  chief  interest;  and  these  may 
indeed  be  considered  without  such  passion  as 
obscures  the  complexity  of  issues,  but  certainly  not 
without  the  passion  that  inspires  creative  thought 
and  invigorates  action. 


CHAPTER  II:  FOREIGN  POLICY 

WE  have  indicated  that  the  starting-point 
for  any  consideration  of  inter-state 
relations  must  be  the  likeness  and 
differences  between  actual  men  and  women.  But 
even  individual  men  and  women  are  complex,  and 
from  their  different  passions  and  thoughts  the 
policy  of  states  arises.  The  action  of  governments 
with  respect  to  other  states  is  due  to  the  settled 
apathy  or  the  sudden  emotions  of  those  upon 
whom  each  government  depends;  and  the  study 
of  foreign  policy  must  therefore  imply  a  know- 
ledge or  how  men  feel  and  a  clear  perception  of 
the  fact  that  their  feelings  grow  stronger  by  being- 
shared.  But  so  far  we  have  spoken  of  men,  as  it 
were,  from  the  point  of  view  of  other  men :  we 
have  referred  to  them  chiefly  in  relation  to  the 
group  or  the  race.  We  must  now,  at  least  in 
passing,  indicate  the  sort  of  activities  which  bubble 
up  in  every  man  and  set  the  race  moving.  For  the 
source  of  all  social  energy  is  in  the  individual;  and 
if  we  are  to  think  adequately  of  the  larger  political 
issues  we  must  consider  the  feelings  and  hopes  of 
single  men,  women,  and  children.  We  shall  be 
lost  in  a  fog  of  vague  phrases  if  we  discuss  the 
state  without  continual  reference  to  actual  human 
beings,  who  have  certain  definite  desires  and 
thoughts.  For  states  and  Churches  and  trade 
unions  and  financial  companies  are  secondary  in 
importance  to  men,  women,  and  children,  even  if, 
as  Plato  said,  we  are  only  unfeathered  bipeds  with 
gregarious  habits. 

The  human  race  is  strangely  complex — bestial, 


FOREIGN  POLICY  19 


ignoble,  and  unintelligent — but  at  the  same  time 
resolute  and  kindly,  filled  with  high  hopes  and 
transforming  thought.  Most  men  are  at  different 
times  each  of  these,  and  no  man  is  always  only  one 
of  these.  The  dealings  of  man  with  man  vary 
between  the  extremes  expressed  in  the  old  phrases 
— "  Man  is  to  man  a  wolf  "  and  "  Man  is  to  man 
a  sacred  thing.55*  For  no  man  consistently  main- 
tains one  attitude  towards  his  fellows.  The  wolf- 
man  turns  kindly,  and  the  benevolent  at  times  show 
an  unexpected  meanness.  Further,  there  is  in  each 
man  heredity;  for  the  past  is  in  our  blood.  In  the 
jungle  which  lies  behind  the  cleared  spaces  in  the 
soul  of  a  civilised  man  lurk  the  old  beasts  which 
once  roamed  over  all  the  thoughts  of  his  ancestors. 
The  most  hideous  are  perhaps  extinct;  but  enough 
remain  to  surprise  those  who  think  of  men  as 
already  showing  angelic  wings. 

Out  of  such  elements  is  made  the  orderly  life 
to  which  civilised  men  have  become  accustomed; 
and  some  of  the  methods  by  which  a  certain 
amount  of  order  and  reason  has  been  introduced 
are  called  states.  Those  are  wrong  who  revile  the 
state  because  it  is  not  the  City  of  God,  and  those 
also  who  are  satisfied  that  it  should  remain  always 
so  different  from  that  city.  Both  schools  forget 
perhaps  that  this  year  lies  somewhere  between 
50,000  B.C.  and  50,000  A.D.  Some  expect  too 

*  These  are  Seneca's  phrases,  doubtless  not  invented  by 
him.  **  Homo  homini  lupus  "  and  "  homo  res  sacra 
homini."  The  early  stoics  thus  attempted  a  psychology  of 
human  relations. 

C2 


THE  WORLD  OF  STATES 


much,  and  others  are  too  easily  satisfied.  Between 
them  stand  the  dumb  majority  which  is  called 
Man. 

What  has  been  achieved  shows  both  how  the 
beast  in  us  may  be  overcome  and  also  how  noble 
a  thing  lay  hid  in  the  first  savage  attempts  at 
security.  For  the  good  and  the  evil  of  the  present 
situation,  in  so  far  as  they  are  due  to  human  action, 
give  warning  of  danger  and  ground  for  hope.  We 
men,  blindly  and  with  much  pain,  with  many  mis- 
takes on  the  way  and  many  happy  chances,  have 
contrived  to  become  what  we  now  are,  and  have 
established  those  orderly  arrangements  in  society 
which  we  call  institutions.  But  still  the  human 
beings  concerned  are  the  centre  of  interest,  and 
their  lives  are  the  end  for  which  our  social  schemes 
exist. 

For  the  purpose  of  this  book  we  must  neglect 
all  other  methods  of  social  organisation  and  con- 
sider only  what  is  called  political;  but  this  must 
not  be  supposed  to  imply  that  it  is  the  most 
important.  And  among  the  political  efforts  to 
make  life  endurable  on  an  inhospitable  planet  we 
shall  attend  chiefly  to  those  institutions  which 
connect  and  divide  vast  groups  of  men,  women, 
and  children,  usually  called  nations.  These  are  the 
states  of  the  world — interesting  and  partially  suc- 
cessful experiments  for  the  attainment  of  a 
moderate  amount  of  quiet  and  security.  They  are 
the  results  of  perhaps  fifty  thousand  years  of  trial 
and  error,  and  are  not  without  marks  of  their  birth 


FOREIGN  POLICY 


in  the  thoughts  and  acts  of  half -redeemed  beasts; 
but  they  have  also  on  them  the  mark  of  that 
fineness  and  infinite  possibility  which  have  distin- 
guished the  race  called  human.  States  are  neither 
mysterious  nor  divine,  except  in  what  they  derive 
from  the  nature  of  man.  They  may  be  studied 
as  facts  and  judged  as  attempts  to  arrive  at  some 
end.  For  we  cannot  accept  them  as  they  stand, 
because  they  obviously  do  not  attain  what  most 
men  expect  from  them;  but  we  cannot  fairly  judge 
them  unless  we  know  how  they  act  and  within 
what  limits  their  usefulness  is  confined.  And  lest 
we  may  seem  to  take  too  much  for  granted,  we 
have  indicated  shortly  what  we  mean  by  the  word 
state,  in  saying  that  wherever  there  is  a  legal  sys- 
tem with  an  executive  power  for  administration 
there  is  a  state.  The  forty  or  more  such  complete 
systems  at  present  in  existence  have  varying  rela- 
tions to  other  organisations  for  religion,  for 
industry,  for  commerce,  for  art,  or  for  science,  in 
tfhich  men  unite  themselves.  But  the  importan* 
fact  for  us  here  is  that  these  states,  as  distinguished 
from  other  institutions,  have  varying  relations  one 
to  the  other.  We  shall  presume  here  that  all  those 
who  govern  or  are  governed  in  one  group  belong 
to  one  state  and  in  some  sense  are  the  state :  for 
even  the  slave  within  a  despot's  reach  helps  to 
keep  in  being  the  orderly  arrangement  of  life 
under  which  he  lives.  The  state,  then,  is  formed 
by  the  opinion  of  the  men  and  women  who  enjoy 
or  endure  the  unique  relationship  between  them 


THE  WORLD  OF  STATES 


which  may  be  called  political  administration :  and 
every  state  has  an  executive  or  a  government  which 
is  felt  by  the  passive  part  of  the  state  as  the  real 
source  of  state-thinking  and  state-action.  The 
purpose  of  each  state  organisation  is  order,  and  as 
much  freedom  as  is  possible  within  the  particular 
scheme  of  order  adopted  or  inherited;  and  the 
activities  which  directly  support  or  destroy  such 
order  and  freedom  are  called  political.  This, 
briefly,  is  how  the  states  of  the  world  come  to  be 
what  they  are,  as  a  result  of  the  varying  passions 
of  men  and  women.  Let  us  turn  then  to  the 
study  of  the  inertia  and  the  forces  which  keep  the 
states  of  the  world  in  being  and  direct  or  disturb 
their  usefulness. 

It  is  only  at  moments  of  crisis  that  the  majority 
of  men  are  troubled  by  political  problems.  For 
most  of  their  lives  men  regard  the  administration 
under  which  they  live  with  submissiveness  or 
suspicion,  or  they  entirely  forget  its  existence. 
The  social  world  is  affected  by  the  existence  and 
activity  of  elaborate  political  administrations,  but 
the  majority  of  human  beings  are  sublimely  un- 
concerned. The  policeman,  the  tax-collector,  and 
the  sanitary  inspector,  even  armies  and  navies,  are 
easily  taken  for  embodiments  of  an  eternal  and 
absolute  "  nature  of  things  " ;  and  men  accept  them 
as  they  accept  thunderstorms  or  rain.  The  rules 
according  to  which  daily  life  is  organised  become 
almost  as  unconscious  as  the  processes  of  diges- 
tion :  and  this,  indeed,  is  no  business  of  ours  until 


FOREIGN  POLICY 


it  works  badly.  Thus  it  comes  about  that  nearly 
all  political  action  is  without  any  purpose  which  is 
understood  or  appreciated  by  those  who  suffer  or 
benefit  from  it:  and  with  this  political  childish- 
ness we  have  to  reckon  when  we  are  dealing  with 
the  larger  issues  of  politics. 

Politicians,  professional  and  amateur,  are  more 
numerous  in  England  than  elsewhere.  And 
before  we  consider  the  relation  of  states  and 
governments  we  must  know  that  the  human 
race  is  not  keenly  political,  but  is  diverse,  semi- 
conscious, interested  in  a  thousand  different  pur- 
suits, and,  in  the  main,  submissive.  Even  in 
England  political  interests  are  transitory.  An 
election  occasionally,  a  murder  generally,  and  a  war 
invariably,  attracts  the  attention  of  men  to  the 
institutions  under  which  they  live.  But  men 
have  lacked  interest  because  they  are  pursuaded 
that  they  cannot  control  government,  and  they 
have  become  docile  under  the  irresponsibility 
of  their  rulers.*  The  very  instability  of  the 
average  man's  attention  induces  him  to  give 
a  preposterous  importance  to  the  objects  to 
which  he  is  compelled  to  attend.  He  is  easily 
alarmed  and  easily  fooled.  For  being  unsophisti- 
cated in  politics,  when  in  a  crisis  he  is  driven  to 
think  of  political  issues,  his  mind  is  open  to  the 
seven  devils  of  obsolete  political  wisdom.  He 
flies  to  listen  before  the  tub  on  which  stands  the 


Lord  Bryce^  has  said  that  the  state  is  based  on 
indolence  and  docility;  cf.  Studies  in  History  and  Juris- 
prudence. Vol.  II. 


24  THE  WORLD  OF  STATES 

practical  man;  and  this  interesting  biped  poses  as 
an  authority  because  his  mistakes  are  the  cause  of 
our  difficulties.  The  practical  man  is  indeed  an 
authority  on  the  course  he  has  pursued :  but  for 
that  very  reason  he  is  a  bad  judge  of  any  alterna- 
tive. He  cannot  see  anything  but  difficulties  if 
he  is  presented  with  a  new  plan  of  action;  and  he 
cannot  see  anything  but  unfortunate  accident  in 
the  natural  consequences  of  his  own  ineptitude. 
He  thus  misleads  the  common  man  by  the  over- 
rating of  practical  experience  of  past  mistakes. 
There  is,  however,  the  other  side  of  the  facts.  The 
common  man  is  hard-headed,  and,  after  a  time, 
can  tell  the  direction  in  which  he  desires  to  go. 
Above  all,  he  never  quite  loses  his  sense  of  flesh 
and  blood  and  the  basic  realities,  even  if  for  a  time 
he  is  befogged  with  words  and  blinded  by  a  tinsel 
pomp.  And  so,  sometimes  by  long  detours,  the 
right  course  is  taken  in  making  human  life  more 
endurable. 

The  particular  issues  with  which  we  must  deal 
here  are  even  less  familiar  to  the  majority  than  the 
problems  of  law  and  administration.  For  nearly 
all  men  think  of  their  state  in  isolation.  It  is  not 
difficult,  however,  at  the  present  moment  to  show 
the  importance  to  quite  ordinary  persons  of  the 
dealings  between  states.  Twelve  institutions  for 
the  attainment  of  quiet  and  security  have  been 
since  1914  in  a  situation  called  "belligerency," 
and  as  a  result  many  ordinary  persons  are  suffering 
in  life  and  limb.  Various  other  institutions  for 


FOREIGN  POLICY 


the  same  purpose  are  in  a  situation  called  "  neu- 
trality ";  and  under  them  fear  grows  and  the  more 
extreme  division  of  rich  and  poor  proceeds  apace. 
The  majority  believe  that  someone  is  to  blame : 
others  believe  that  it  is  the  nature  of  things : 
others,  again,  that  something  is  wrong  with  the 
system  of  inter-state  relations.  And  doubtless 
there  are  many  varieties  of  these  three  views;  but 
we  cannot  here  discuss  this  problem.  It  will  be 
sufficient  if  it  be  recognised  that  it  is  important, 
and  that  if  we  can  in  any  way  control  the  actions 
which  lead  to  such  a  situation,  we  must  have  clear 
ideas  as  to  the  relation  between  states. 

The  states  of  the  world  are  continually  in  con- 
tact. They  support  a  peculiar  custom  called  diplo- 
macy which  has  been  found  to  be  moderately 
effective  in  arranging  the  business  of  government 
when  the  citizens  of  one  state  pass  into  the  terri- 
tory of  another  or  when  the  wealth  of  one  district 
is  owned  by  the  inhabitants  of  another.  It  is  mere 
prejudice  to  blame  diplomacy  for  the  evils  of  inter- 
state confusion,  for  it  is  a  first  attempt  at  reducing 
to  order  what  would  otherwise  be  pure  chaos.  And 
in  so  far  as  diplomacy  is  at  all  effective  it  is,  as  it 
were,  the  instrument  of  foreign  policy,  which  must 
be  here  understood  to  mean  the  direction  of  poli- 
tical action  with  a  view  to  its  influence  upon  other 
states. 

In  one  sense  all  policy  is  foreign  policy,  since 
every  political  action  has  effects  outside  the 
boundaries  of  one  state.  We  cannot  improve 


26  THE  WORLD  OF  STATES 

our  sanitation  without  making  the  contact  of 
foreigners  with  us  less  dangerous  to  foreigners, 
and  we  cannot  suppress  originality  without  lessen- 
ing the  chance  that  men  in  other  nations  will  make 
progress.  The  only  way  to  do  lasting  harm  to 
foreign  nations  is  to  injure  ourselves.  And 
certainly  every  general  trend  in  internal  politics,  if 
not  every  definite  action,  has  its  effects  upon  other 
states.  The  reverse  is  obviously  true :  for  no 
reform  or  revolution  in  another  state  is  without 
some  effect  upon  our  own  internal  politics.  We 
can,  however,  distinguish  roughly  between  those 
political  actions  which  bear  chiefly  upon  the 
citizens  of  one  state  and  those  activities  which 
affect  chiefly  the  citizens  of  another  state.  The 
latter  may  be  taken  as  the  embodiment  of  foreign 
policy.  How  do  men  feel  with  regard  to  these  ? 

It  is  obvious  that  no  continuous  or  common 
emotion  is  felt  even  among  the  members  of  one 
state.  The  passions  which  govern  foreign  policy 
are  more  changeable  than  those  which  affect 
internal  government.  But  certain  very  general 
tendencies  can  be  made  out,  which  still  affect 
the  lives  of  men.  Everyone  knows  that  the 
leading  conception  of  the  external  relations  of 
states  has  been  that  states  are  to  each  other  "  in 
the  posture  of  gladiators."  The  best  and  clearest 
statement  of  the  view  is  to  be  found  in  Hobbes' 
Leviathan,  but  it  is  a  view  which  is  accepted  with- 
out argument  by  the  majority  of  those  who  have 
inherited  rather  than  acquired  their  opinions.  It 


FOREIGN  POLICY  27 


implies  that  force  and  fraud  are  the  methods  of 
foreign  policy,  and  that  its  purpose  is  the  destruc- 
tion of  every  other  system  of  government.  There 
is,  on  this  supposition,  no  lie  and  no  violence 
which  should  not  be  used  in  the  promotion  of  the 
interest  of  each  state  against  every  other. 

Another  leading  conception  of  foreign  policy 
is  that  which  has  resulted  in  International  Law. 
On  this  supposition,  the  clearest  source  of  which 
we  may  find  in  Grotius,  all  states  are  bound  to 
limit  the  methods  of  pursuing  their  interest  by  a 
vague  sense  of  natural  or  Christian  morality. 
Thus,  we  may  lie  a  little,  but  not  too  much;  and 
we  may  enforce  our  will,  but  with  no  excessive 
infliction  of  suffering  on  others.  And  although 
in  a  sense  this  conception,  too,  was  based  on 
force  and  fraud,  it  implied  that  all  civilised  states 
belonged  to  a  community  whose  interests  were,  at 
any  rate  in  part,  shared  by  all.  The  majority  of 
men  have  always  attempted  to  compromise  between 
these  views :  but  probably  both  are  now  obsolete 
The  facts  of  modern  political  experience  are  such 
that  we  shall  probably  have  to  elaborate  an 
entirely  new  view  of  foreign  policy  and  inter-state 
relations :  and  what  we  have  so  far  said  is  based 
only  upon  the  crudest  contrast  between  the  views 
which  affect  foreign  policy.  There  is,  however,  one 
obstacle  to  be  overcome  before  we  go  any  further. 
This  is  the  vast  and  all-corroding  falsehood  in  the 
usual  conception  of  foreign  policy.  It  is  implied 
in  nearly  every  newspaper  article  on  the  subject, 


28  THE  WORLD  OF  STATES 

and  it  is  ingrained  in  the  mind  of  the  average  man. 
It  is  that  the  state  to  which  we  belong  is  a  com- 
plete and  separate  whole,  whose  perfection  is  some- 
what tarnished  by  the  existence  of  other  states. 
Hence  comes  a  surly  annoyance  with  foreign 
governments.  Other  systems  of  government  are 
conceived  as  a  nuisance  to  the  average  man  and 
an  obstacle  to  the  professed  diplomatist,  for  the 
average  man  wants  to  be  left  alone,  and  the 
diplomatist  wants  to  have  his  own  way.  All 
would  be  well  if  we  could  remove  every  sovereign 
state  to  a  separate  planet,  taking  care  to  deposit 
those  with  which  we  are  most  annoyed  at  the 
moment  altogether  outside  the  solar  system.  But 
unfortunately  in  politics  we  have  to  suppose  that 
all  states  are  on  the  surface  of  one  planet  and  that 
the  contracting  of  the  social  world  will  bring 
governments  more  and  not  less  into  contact. 

This  much  is  fact.  We  may  wish  it  otherwise 
and  we  may  do  what  we  can  to  change  it;  but  so 
far  the  action  of  any  state  affects  every  other. 
The  desire  to  change  this  situation,  however,  leads 
to  the  policy  of  isolating  states  more  and  more. 
It  is  felt  that  the  influence  of  other  states  interferes 
with  the  development  of  our  own  state,  and  it  is 
argued  that  if  our  own  state  were  not  dependent 
upon  the  citizens  of  other  states  for  food,  or 
money,  or  ideas,  we  should  be  more  "  secure." 
Every  state,  it  is  said,  must  be  as  far  as  possible 
self-sufficing,  for  to  depend  on  any  other  is  to  put 
yourself  at  the  mercy  of  that  other.  We  must 


FOREIGN  POLICY  29 


have  our  own  corn  grown  under  our  own  govern- 
ment and  develop  our  own  music  without  depend- 
ing upon  foreigners.  For  otherwise  we  shall  be 
enslaved  economically  by  those  who  grow  our  corn 
and  degraded  in  culture  by  those  who  supply  our 
music.  There  is  a  suspicion  that  the  works  of 
Beethoven  and  Debussy  were  specially  directed 
against  the  progress  of  English  music. 

Much  can  be  done  to  make  a  state  self-sufficing. 
If  it  is  a  small  state  like  Ecuador  or  Denmark  it 
is  more  difficult;  but,  if  its  people  are  willing  to 
do  without  some  foreign  products,  even  these  can 
be  isolated.  It  is,  however,  in  a  large  state  that 
the  doctrine  is  usually  believed;  for  it  is  possible 
to  obtain  a  greater  variety  of  good  things  among 
sixty  millions  inhabiting  thousands  of  square  miles 
than  among  six  million  inhabiting  a  small  state. 
The  doctrine  of  self-sufficiency,  invented  by  small 
Greek  cities,  is  now  popular  only  in  great  imperial 
states. 

The  unconscious  hypothesis  upon  which  this 
older  view  of  foreign  policy  is  based  is  that 
the  interests  of  states  can  be  entirely  separated. 
There  is  a  confusion  made  by  the  Hobbes- 
Machiavelli  school  between  the  interests  of  the 
men,  women,  and  children  of  a  state  and  the 
interests  of  the  administration  or  government. 
But  that  need  not  concern  us  here.  For  the  funda- 
mental issue  is  whether  the  interests  of  states  in 
any  sense  of  the  word  are  segregate. 

On  the  other  side  are  those  who  would  base 


30  THE  WORLD  OF  STATES 

foreign  policy  upon  the  principle  that  the  interests 
of  the  states  of  the  world  are  common.  Free  Trade 
was  once  maintained  with  this  argument;  but  we 
must  not  deal  here  with  questions  of  specific 
programmes  for  changing  the  situation.  It  is  a 
fact  that  every  one  of  the  forty  or  more  sovereign 
states  of  the  world  is  continually  being  affected  by 
every  other;  and  if  that  is  so,  then  each  is  not  a 
complete  universe  to  itself.  The  actions  of  its 
government  harm  or  help  far-distant  and  alien 
peoples,  and  the  happiness  of  its  own  citizens  is 
affected  by  the  disorder  or  the  liberty  which 
citizens  of  other  states  have  secured.  In  a  sense, 
therefore,  no  state  stands  for  a  separate  and 
isolated  interest;  and  all  state-action  should  be, 
hypothetically,  directed  by  reference  to  all  states 
of  the  world  in  so  far  as  their  interests  are  the 
same.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  the  denial  of  the 
distinct  interests  of  different  states  neglects  local 
development  and  separate  national  character.  For 
there  are  undoubtedly  some  state-actions  which  in 
the  main  do  not  affect  seriously  any  but  the 
inhabitants  of  that  state,  and  in  these  the  separate 
state  should  be  absolute  or  "  sovereign." 

There  are,  therefore,  two  lines  of  policy  which 
may  be  adopted  in  foreign  affairs,  the  older  and 
more  traditional  being  that  which  aims  at  the 
isolation  of  the  state  and  a  complete  independence 
of  action  for  each  sovereign  government.  The 
newer,  reflecting  the  new  social  world,  seeks  to 
develop  by  commercial  treaty  or  even  by  arbitration 


FOREIGN  POLICY 


agreements  the  common  action  of  many  states.* 
In  actual  fact  diplomacy  and  its  directors,  the 
foreign  ministers  of  the  states  of  the  world,  do  not 
consistently  maintain  either  policy.  They  some- 
times aim  at  complete  and  absolute  independence 
of  action ;  sometimes  by  alliance,  entente,  or  special 
treaty  they  aim  at  action  in  common  with  other 
governments;  and,  although  sometimes  there  is  gn 
irrational  inconsistency  in  the  policy  adopted,  in  the 
main  the  indecision  of  foreign  policy  reflects  the 
difficulty  of  deciding  in  given  issues  what  interests 
are  those  of  one  state  only  and  what  interests  arc 
common  to  many  states.  It  will  be  understood 
that  this  is  not  a  defence  of  present  diplomatic 
methods,  still  less  of  the  oligarchical  tendencies 
which  show  themselves  in  the  selection  of 
diplomatic  officials  in  every  state.  Those  are 
questions  of  detail  which  could  only  be  dealt  with 
in  a  treatise  on  the  detail  of  administration.  If  we 
confine  our  attention  here,  however,  to  the  general 
policy  of  states,  we  cannot  justly  repudiate  the 
efforts  of  diplomacy  and  foreign  offices.  The 
issues  are  difficult  to  judge  precisely  in  this  point 
— which  are  the  interests  which  are  those  of  one 
state  only  ? 

It  is  clear  that  with  regard  to  those  interests  only 

*  See  below  for  details  of  these  policies,  p.  99  sq.  Un- 
fortunately there  is  as  yet  no  adequate  history  of  foreign 
policy.  Those  which  have  been  published  are  lists  of  events, 
with  no  appreciation  of  general  principles.  The  best  study 
of  the  policy  of  one  state  will  be  found  in  J.  B.  Moore's 
American  Diplomacy. 


32  THE  WORLD  OF  STATES 

should  the  action  of  officials  of  a  single  state  be 
absolute,  for  interests  which  are  common  to  many 
states  should  be  maintained  by  states  acting  in 
concert.  This  is  the  ordinary  principle  of  govern- 
ment or  organisation  by  reference  to  the  interests 
involved.  Opinions  should  be  asked  for  from  all 
who  are  concerned,  and  their  common  decision 
should  rule.  We  are  not  now  suggesting  alliance 
or  league.  It  is  a  question  here  of  the  general 
principle  which  should  govern  the  dealings  between 
states,  and  we  suggest  that  one  such  principle  is 
that  states  should  be  treated  as  isolated  in  those 
questions  which  relate  to  "  internal  "  affairs  or  to 
interests  which  are  not  common  to  many  states, 
and  states  should  be  treated  and  should  act  as  parts 
of  a  system  in  respect  to  those  interests  which  are 
common  to  many  states.  This  is,  in  a  sense, 
accepted  platitude.  The  real  difficulty  arises  when 
we  seek  to  discover  which  interests  are  separate 
and  which  common;  but  something  would  be 
gained  if  the  general  principle  were  admitted  and 
acted  upon,  so  that  the  Machiavelli-Hobbes 
tradition  should  be  abolished.  Of  the  two  elements 
in  the  general  principle  for  foreign  policy  that 
which  emphasises  the  separateness  of  states  is  more 
commonly  acted  upon,  and  that  which  maintains 
the  common  interests  of  states  is  given  generally 
lip-service.  To  lay  some  emphasis,  therefore,  upon 
the  common  interests  of  states  would  do  no  harm. 
As  for  the  distinction  between  separate  and 
common  interests,  the  method  of  distinguishing 


FOREIGN  POLICY  33 


must  be  empirical,  as  it  has  been  in  the  case  of 
local  and  central  government.  One  could  hardly 
tell  a  priori  that  police  organisation  in  large  states 
should  be  centralised  and  magistracies  localised. 
Sewage  must  be  locally  organised;  but  education 
is  an  instance  of  more  difficulty,  for  it  is  not  yet 
clear  whether  educational  organisation  should  be 
local  or  centralised.  As  between  states,  the  treat- 
ment of  disease,  and  perhaps  of  crime,  is  a  common 
interest;  the  organisation  of  retail  trade  is  a  local 
affair.  And  of  some  issues,  like  national  group- 
freedom,  it  is  still  difficult  to  say  whether  they 
could,  or  even  should,  be  treated  as  an  interest 
which  is  common  to  many  states.  Should  the 
position  of  Ireland  or  Egypt  or  Finland  or  Korea 
be  considered  by  many  states  or  only  by  that  state 
in  which  each  of  these  nationalities  is  included? 

Some  will  think  that  the  general  principle  we 
have  suggested  of  limiting,  by  agreement  upon 
common  action,  the  sovereignty  of  separate  states 
is  very  revolutionary.  Others  will  think  it  is  an 
obvious  reform  already  too  long  delayed.  But 
whichever  is  true,  there  are  a  sufficient  number  of 
quite  obviously  common  interests  to  the  achieve 
ment  of  which  foreign  policy  might  be  directed; 
and,  whether  we  fear  the  loss  of  sovereignty  or 
hate  the  very  name  of  sovereignty,  the  practical 
need  is  to  inspire  the  machinery  of  diplomatic 
intercourse  with  some  organic  view  of  inter-state 
relations.  It  seems  sufficiently  clear  that  an 
increasing  number  of  commercial  treaties  or  of 


THE  WORLD  OF  STATES 


agreements  on  educational  reform  would  be  the 
best  work  diplomacy  could  perform,  not  to  speak 
of  planning  a  reduction  of  armaments  or  a  revision 
of  criminal  codes.  The  practical  effect  would  be 
that  many  states  acted  in  co-operation,  and  it 
would  not  much  concern  us  if  the  language  and 
forms  of  sovereignty  continued  to  be  maintained.* 
Whatever  the  decision  upon  the  method  of 
dealing  with  particular  issues,  the  general  truth  is 
undeniable  that  many  more  such  issues  than  in  the 
past  are  of  common  interest  to  all  states.  There- 
fore, even  without  any  league  or  inter-state 
government,  foreign  policy  should  be  directed 
towards  co-operative  action  upon  common  inte- 
rests, and  the  true  limits  to  the  sovereignty  or 
absolutism  of  the  state  acting  separately  should  be 
admitted.  There  is  no  reason  whatever  why 
diplomacy  should  not  follow  out  the  line  of 
progress  which  has  been  already  entered  upon  by 
some  of  its  most  distinguished  officials;  and  prob- 
ably what  is  needed  now  is  a  new  orientation  of 
the  popular  outlook  rather  than  any  violent  change 
in  organisation. 

*  Indeed,  state-sovereignty  is  often  treated  as  legal  fiction 
even  by  diplomatists.  It  is  a  convenient  form  for  expressing 
the  independence  in  internal  administration  of  a  single 
government.  A  treaty  is  not  conceived  to  be  a  repudiation 
of  sovereignty,  on  the  ground  that  it  is  a  contract  into  which 
the  state  freely  enters ;  but,  in  fact,  a  treaty  limits  sove- 
reignty or  absolutism,  and  the  principle  that  treaties  should 
be  kept  is  not  itself  binding  because  of  the  free  choice  of 
states. 


FOREIGN  POLICY  35 


If  we  return,  then,  to  the  consideration  of  actual 
men,  women,  and  children,  with  feelings  and  needs, 
we  shall  see  that  what  are  to  be  dealt  with  by  state- 
governments,  acting  absolutely  or  in  concert,  are 
the  similarity  and  differences  of  groups  of  human 
beings.  The  "  interests  "  of  men  may  be  made  to 
include  a  finer  life  as  well  as  food  and  clothing,  and 
of  that  finer  life  two  constituents  are  individual 
liberty  and  group  autonomy.  But  just  as  liberty 
for  the  individual  does  not  involve  disregard  for 
others,  so  autonomy  does  not  involve  isolation  or 
absolute  independence  of  the  state-group.  And 
men,  even  the  much-abused  diplomatists,  are  still 
far  more  uncertain  than  evil-minded;  for  it  is  not 
in  fact  easy  to  see  where,  for  example,  the  feelings 
and  needs  of  Americans  and  Englishmen  are  the 
same  and  where  they  are  different.  We  have  every 
variety  of  difference  within  the  common  humanity, 
upon  the  recognition  of  which  all  political  action 
should  be  based;  and  inter-state  structure  and 
inter-state  action  should  be  various  and  complex 
as  are  the  varieties  and  complexities  of  the  human 
race. 


Dfc 


CHAPTER  III:   NATIONALITY 

THE  most  important  fact  in  the  contact  of 
governmental  systems  is  that  each  of  them 
is  the  result  and,  as  it  were,  the  embodiment 
of  what  is  called  a  national  spirit.  If  states 
were  only  arrangements  for  orderly  life  between 
different  groups  of  absolutely  similar  men,  the 
differences  and  disputes  between  states  would  not 
be  so  frequent  as  they  are.  But  the  different 
groups  do  not  contain  otherwise  undifferentiated 
men,  for  each  group  contains  men  between  whom 
the  bond  is  one  of  sentiment  rather  than  of 
administrative  regulations.  Not  all  the  citizens  or 
subjects  of  the  same  state  are  united  by  the  bond 
of  affection  which  is  called  the  national  spirit,  for 
there  are  many  states  which  include  citizens  with 
different  nationality.  Even  in  these  heterogeneous 
states,  however,  the  system  of  government 
generally  bears  the  mark  of  one  nation's  character 
or  spirit,  as  within  the  British  Empire  the  govern- 
mental system  is  English.  Thus,  even  in  the 
heterogeneous  state  the  most  effective  bond  seems 
to  be  intimately  connected  with  the  character  and 
traditions  of  one  nation.  This  is  felt  strongly  by 
those  whose  race  is  dominant,  and  by  them  the 
bond  is  called  patriotism.* 

Where  patriotism  is  most  genuine  as  a  passion, 
in  small  homogeneous  populations,  it  is  happily 
weakest  as  a  political  force.  Where  it  is  less 

*  It  is  taken  for  granted  that  a  nation  is  a  group  with  one 
tradition  and  often  with  one  blood  or  language.  A  state  is 
an  administrative  system  ;  but  its  citizens  may  not  be  of  one 
nation. 


NATIONALITY  37 


genuine  and  more  artificial  as  a  passion,  in  the  large 
imperial  states,  it  is  very  strong  politically  because 
it  serves  as  a  driving  force  which  uses  subordinate 
races  as  its  instrument.  The  patriotism  of  small  ? 
nations  is  defensive  and  apologetic;  that  of  great 
states  is  aggressive  and  domineering.  But  since  ^ 
states  change  and  sometimes  increase  in  wealth  and 
power,  the  same  passion  which  was  once  defensive 
often,  with  the  growth  of  the  state,  becomes 
aggressive.  Obviously,  however,  the  analysis  of 
the  very  complex  fact  of  nationality  and  the  moral 
judgment  of  the  many  emotions  of  patriotism  is 
not  our  task  here.  We  simply  refer  to  these  as 
indications  that  the  difference  between  states  lies 
deeper  than  the  mere  distinctions  in  law  and 
government. 

Scftne  men  appear  to  desire  a  world  in  which 
there  shall  be  no  differences  of  language  or  custom 
or  administration.  And  it  would  indeed  be  much 
easier  to  make  life  peaceful  if  there  were  no  such 
differences.  Therefore  some  men  oppose  nation- 
ality or,  more  mildly,  advocate  a  universal  dialect. 
This  obsolete  internationalism  joins  hands  with  the 
extremest  nationalism  in  its  hatred  of  differences; 
for  the  extreme  nationalist  develops  into  an 
imperialist,  who  agrees  with  the  old-fashioned 
internationalist  in  desiring  only  one  language,  but, 
being  a  "  practical "  man,  the  imperialist  intends 
that  that  language  shall  be  his  own.  The  simpler 
mind  is  easily  attracted  to  this  attitude  when  it  is 
brought  up  against  some  difference  of  speech, 


3  8  THE  WORLD  OF  STATES 

custom,  or  law.  The  traveller  "  abroad  "  who 
belongs  to  the  uneducated  upper  classes  or  to  the 
very  simple  working  class  is  annoyed  if  he  cannot 
have  bacon  for  breakfast  in  the  Italian  Alps.  He 
feels  the  last  vestige  of  civilisation  vanish  when  he 
sees  only  coffee  and  rolls :  he  seems  to  himself  to 
be  on  the  frontiers  of  an  unendurable  desert. 
And  so  he  comes  home  again  with  an  enhanced 
"  patriotism,"  based  upon  the  conception  that 
bacon  for  breakfast  is  civilised  life.  This,  though 
not  the  most  exalted,  is  the  most  commonly  felt 
patriotism.  It  is  essentially  the  same  in  kind  as  the 
patriotism  which  implies  disgust  at  finding  that 
other  groups  prefer  less  excellent  systems  of 
government  to  our  own.  The  bad  taste  of 
foreigners  is  regarded  as  inexplicable. 

There  is,  however,  another  sense  of  the  word 
patriotism;  and,  although  one  cannot  distinguish 
clearly  in  any  man  the  mean  form  of  an  emotion 
from  its  more  splendid  embodiment,  we  may 
suppose  that  patriotism  in  the  finer  sense  is  the 
emotional  perception  of  important  and  not  trivial 
facts.  For  patriotism  may  mean  the  affection  for 
the  scenes  and  the  faces  which  were  familiar  when 
we  were  young.  It  may  mean  the  desire  to  be  with 
and  to  help  those  whom  we  can  most  easily  under- 
stand. It  includes  the  admiration  for  great  deeds 
done  by  men  like  us,  and  the  sense  of  belonging 
to  no  mean  family.  Intellectually  it  is  due  to  a 
sort  of  dim  perception  that  differences  exist  among 
the  human  race,  and  that  those  differences  are 


NATIONALITY  39 


important  which  make  men  feel,  in  contrast  with 
other  groups,  a  common  honour  and  a  common 
disgrace. 

The  different  qualities  of  patriotism  correspond 
to  different  conceptions  of  nationality.  The 
meaner  mind  perceives  only  differences  of  a  trivial 
kind  such  as  wealth  and  power;  and  what  is  best  in 
the  nation  to  which  one  belongs  appears  to  be  its 
money  or  its  ships  or  its  army  or  its  millionaires. 
To  men  who  test  value  by  such  criteria  the  develop 
ment  of  their  nation  will  seem  to  be  worth  pro- 
moting only  for  financial  reasons,  or  for  "  glory/5 
which  is  the  disguise  adopted  by  the  desire  for 
wealth  and  the  delight  in  conquering  others. 
Nations  then  would  differ  in  wealth  and  power, 
and  this  would  be  the  essential  fact.  But,  on  the 
other  hand,  men  may  value  their  nationality  for 
what  may  be  called  its  character.  A  tradition  of 
truthfulness  or  intelligence  or  interest  in  art — all 
these  may  seem  to  be  most  worth  preserving;  and 
to  develop  the  opportunities  for  these,  rather  than 
to  increase  wealth  and  power,  may  seem  to  be  the 
best  purpose  or  the  nation.  Men  who  thus  test 
value  do  not  underrate  the  difference  between 
nations;  but  the  important  difference  does  not 
seem  to  them  to  be  the  size  of  armies  or  of 
national  incomes. 

We  must  probably  suppose  that  the  differences 
between  nations  which  underlie  the  distinction  of 
states  are  due  to  a  complex  of  meanness  and 
nobility.  There  is  no  group  of  men  which  does 


40  THE  WORLD  OF  STATES 

not  include  some  who  are  trivial  in  their  emotions 
and  superficial  in  their  thought,  and  some  who  feel 
deeply  and  think  clearly.  Probably  most  men  are 
at  a  stage  between  these  two,  or  perhaps  most  men 
vary  from  moment  to  moment.  The  differences 
between  nations,  then,  are  of  a  subtle  and  very 
changeable  kind;  but  we  must  allow  for  them  in 
reviewing  political  life  or  in  attempting  to  improve 
it.  Nationality  is  too  deeply  rooted  and,  in  some 
of  its  meanings,  too  valuable  for  us  to  override  it 
by  extreme  imperialism  or  expunge  it  by  a  crude 
internationalism.  If,  however,  we  reckon  with 
nationality  as  a  fact,  we  must  nevertheless  refuse 
to  accept  without  criticism  the  results  which 
generally  follow  from  the  conscious  recognition  of 
a  national  bond  among  people  of  the  same  nation. 
For  when  many  are  impressed  with  the  importance 
of  nationality,  other  equally  important  political 
facts  become  obscured  by  a  fog  of  sentiment, 
exactly  as  in  the  old  days  the  belief  in  central 
government  obscured  the  evils  of  personal  rule. 
The  so-called  rights  of  nations  are  often  no  more 
reasonably  conceived  than  the  divine  rights  of 
kings.  For  not  every  group  of  incompetents  has 
a  right  to  establish  a  peculiar  government  simply 
because  their  absurd  speech  is  unintelligible  to  any- 
one but  themselves.  The  rights  of  nationality  are 
not  superior  to  those  of  civilisation  at  large,  and 
the  ambitions  of  a  national  group,  small  or  large, 
may  sometimes  be  opposed  to  the  progress  of  law 
and  liberty. 


NATIONALITY  41 


We  must,  therefore,  examine  into  the  quality 
of  a  national  spirit  before  committing  ourselves  to 
the  statement  that  that  spirit  ought  to  have  freer 
play  or  a  separate  embodiment  within  the  state- 
system.  For  although  there  is  no  justification  for 
the  oppression  of  one  nation  by  another,  either 
within  or  across  state  frontiers,  there  is  no  excuse 
for  a  general  upheaval  if  some  one  group  is  not 
equal  in  political  importance  to  some  other.  There 
is,  indeed,  more  real  danger  of  the  suppression  of 
national  differences  within  the  great  states  of 
modern  times  than  there  is  danger  of  small  groups 
exacting  too  much.  For  officials  who  direct  or 
inspire  the  action  of  governments  naturally  aim  at 
ease  of  government  rather  than  at  good  govern- 
ment, and  government  is  certainly  easier  if  the 
mass  of  the  governed  is  undifferentiated.  There-  ? 
fore  both  in  Austria  and  in  Germany  attempts  have  I 
been  made  to  expunge  national  differences  within  f 
the  frontiers  of  the  state.  This  is  wrong;  but  the 
general  truth  still  holds  good  that  nationality  is 
only  one  among  many  political  facts  and  not  neces- 
sarily the  most  important. 

It  is,  however,  important  enough  for  our  present 
purpose  if  it  is  one  of  the  bonds  that  make  a  group 
and  if  it  is  one  of  the  causes  for  the  distinctions 
between  states.  In  this  latter  sense  it  must  be 
made  the  basis  either  for  separatism  or  for  co- 
operation between  supreme  political  administra- 
tions. It  provides,  therefore,  an  emotional  or 
traditional  support  for  the  two  methods  of  foreign 


42  THE  WORLD  OF  STATES 

policy  of  which  we  have  spoken  above.  For 
nationality  may  be  appealed  to  with  a  view  to 
dividing  one  administration  from  another,  as  when 
Greece  was  freed  from  the  Turkish  Empire;  or  it 
may  be  appealed  to  as  a  ground  for  action  in 
common  with  another  state,  as  when  Russia  felt 
with  the  Slav  race  in  Serbia.  But  since  nationality 
is  still  much  confused  with  the  possession  of  a 
distinct  administration,  the  appeal  to  nationality 
has  generally  the  appearance  of  dividing  states 
rather  than  uniting  them.  A  common  nationality 
is  usually  understood  best  by  the  members  of  a 
nation  when  it  is  contrasted  with  some  other. 

The  effect  of  the  appeal  to  national  spirit  or 
character  in  order  to  strengthen  one  state  against 

(another,  or  even  to  hold  states  in  opposition, 
varies  very  much  in  accordance  with  the  meaning 
given  to  nationality.  For  the  tendency  to  isolate 
one's  own  group  and  to  oppose  all  other 
groups  is  much  stronger  among  those  who 
test  the  value  of  nationality  by  wealth,  power, 
or  numbers.  It  is  sometimes  convenient  politically 
to  refer  to  Shakespeare  or  Beethoven;  but  the 
existence  of  a  national  literature  or  music  can 
hardly  be  used  even  by  the  most  unreasoning 
public  orator  as  a  ground  for  separating  states. 
The  chief  ground  for  separation,  therefore,  is  to 
be  found  in  the  simpler  or  more  primitive  meaning 
of  nationality.  For  the  importance  of  one's  nation, 
tested  by  reference  to  numbers  or  wealth,  is  clearly 
tarnished  if  we  assist  others  to  be  wealthy  by 


NATIONALITY  43 


leaving  them  in  peace  or  communicating  with 
them.  And  this  simpler  sense  of  nationality  is  a 
frequent  cause  of  political  anarchy  in  inter-state 
relations. 

It  may  very  well  be  that  all  men  should  under- 
stand the  nobler  meaning  of  nationality  and  should 
perceive  that  difference  does  not  involve  hostility 
or  even  isolation.  But  unfortunately  political 
action  cannot  be  based  upon  what  men  ought  to 
feel  without  regard  to  what  they  actually  do  feel; 
and  the  great  majority  of  men  in  the  world  at 
present  only  understand  the  very  simplest  national 
differences,  to  which  they  attach  a  quite  undue 
importance.  We  have  to  reckon  with  the  psycho- 
logical situation  as  it  stands.  Not  one-hundredth 
of  the  human  race  can  now  perceive  differences 
from  themselves  without  feeling  hostility  to  those 
who  thus  differ. 

A  group  of  men  who  desire  only  amicable 
contact  with  men  of  other  nations  cannot  afford  to 
neglect  the  fact  that  these  men  of  other  nations 
will  resist  by  force  any  approaches  which  may  be 
made,  or  may  even  forcibly  attack  the  friendly 
group  in  case  it  should  make  advances.  For  it  is 
foolish  to  attempt  handshaking  with  an  armed 
homicidal  lunatic.  Those  benighted  heathens,  the 
Incas  of  Peru,  in  the  sixteenth  century  trusted  the 
Christian  Spaniards  who  had  come  with  the 
superior  morality  of  Europe;  and  they  were 
murdered  or  enslaved  at  a  friendly  banquet.  Much 
the  same  would  occur  to-day  if  we  gave  the 


44  THE  WORLD  OF  STATES 

primitive  an  opening.  And  unfortunately  the 
political  situation  as  between  states  is  even  more 
difficult  than  our  example  would  imply;  for  every 
state  contains  some  of  the  savage  type — men  who 
suspect  and  resist  or  desire  to  forestall  by  force  any 
attempt  at  amicable  contact,  and  as  states  are  now 
organised  such  men  are  able  to  commit  their, finer 
comrades  in  the  same  group  to  the  feuds  of 
barbarism  and  the  actions  of  savagery.  The  mutual 
confidence  of  peoples  is  hardly  a  prominent  factor 
in  inter-state  affairs,  and  state  policy  can,  there- 
fore, hardly  bejbased  upon  it. 

This  primitive  feeling  and  primitive  under- 
standing, if  they  had  free  play,  would  divide  the 
political  world  from  top  to  bottom.  Suspicion  and 
mistrust  of  what  is  unlike  one's  self  or  one's 
immediate  neighbours  would  always  keep  the 
human  race  in  bondage  to  its  most  unintelligent 
and  unimaginative  members,  if  the  state-system 
did  not  provide  for  those  who  felt  the  gain  which 
may  be  had  by  subordinating  differences  to  a 
common  interest.  Non-national  states  hold 
together,  at  least  partly,  because  neighbours  have 
common  interests,  even  if  their  blood  and  language 
is  different.  Thus  primitive  feeling  has  been 
counter-acted  within  the  state  by  the  use  of  a 
common  administration.* 

*The  point  is  that  the  existence  of  the  great  states  of 
modern  times  is  a  proof  that  simple  antipathies  can  be  over- 
come by  a  perception  of  common  interests.  See  the  forma- 
tion of  France,  for  example,  in  Lavisse  and  Ramfoaud ;  and 
compare  the  United  States. 


NATIONALITY  45 


It  is  felt,  however,  that  the  real  difficulty  is  the 
opposite  of  this.  It  is  not  that  every  little  group 
will  sever  its  connection  with  every  other,  but 
rather  that  one  group  will  compel  another  group  to 
give  up  its  liberty  and  to  lose  all  that  made  it  a 
nation.  Even  the  national  group  within  a  great 
empire,  which  is  dominant  over  other  groups, 
prefers  to  imagine  that  there  is  a  danger  to  its 
national  character  rather  than  to  its  tyranny.  And/ 
certainly  there  seems  to  be  evidence  that  more| 
powerful  nations  ride  roughshod  over  the  suscepti- 
bilities or  even  the  "  vital  interests  "  of  smalle^ 
nations.  Therefore  it  is  concluded  that,  the  essence 
of  nationality  being  difference,  the  support  of 
nationality  must  involve  the  complete  severance  of 
states.  For  not  only  may  the  state  be  overturned, 
and  the  national  character  of  its  government 
destroyed,  but  in  more  subtle  ways,  by  assimilation 
of  the  small  to  the  great  or  of  one  neighbour  to 
another,  nationality  may  disappear.  We  should 
then,  it  is  argued,  make  our  wealth  and  power  as 
a  nation  completely  independent  of  foreigners; 
and  it  is  even  said,  by  a  subtler  narrowness,  that  we 
should  keep  to  our  national  music  and  painting. 
For  if  we  do  not,  either  foreign  genius  will 
suppress  the  development  of  native  wit  or,  worse 
still,  art  and  life  will  become  monotonous  and 
characterless.  They  will  have  lost  all  that  valuable 
social  variety  which  comes  from  nationality. 

Against  this  it  must  be  urged  that  the  contact  of 
nations    does    not    necessarily    destroy    national 


46  THE  WORLD  OF  STATES 

character,  whether  that  contact  takes  place  within 
one  state  or  across  the  boundaries  of  states. 
Provence  is  not  degraded  by  its  contact  with  the 
Breton  spirit  under  the  administration  of  France. 
India  is  finding,  rather  than  losing,  its  national 
character  by  contact  with  the  English.  And  only 
in  so  far  as  the  contact  is  not  amicable  is  there  any 
loss  of  national  character  on  either  side.  So  also 
Japan  has  not  lost  its  national  character  by  giving 
up  the  exclusiveness  which  it  preserved  until 
1867.* 

The  character  of  a  national  group  is  not 
endangered  by  amicable  contact  with  other  national 
groups.  For  national  groups  are  divided  from  one 
another  by  differences  greater  than,  but  like  in 
kind,  to  the  distinctions  between  a  Yorkshireman 
and  a  Devonshireman.  And  we  do  not  find  that 
the  Yorkshire  character  is  contaminated  by  friend- 
liness, in  spite  of  the  prejudice  which  appears  to 
exist  that  brusqueness  of  manner  must  counteract 
the  danger  of  kindly  speech.  Something  is  indeed 
lost  when  men  are  friends;  that  something  may 
have  made  them  more  distinguishable  one  from 
the  other,  and  when  they  are  friends  they  may  no 
longer  wear  aggressively  different  hats.  But  what 
is  lost  in  peculiar  characteristics  is  not  so  valuable 
as  to  be  worth  keeping,  and  what  is  gained  is  in- 
calculably important.  Amicable  contact  means  the 
loss  of  savage  exclusiveness  and  the  gain  of 

*  cf.  The  Political  History  of  Japan  in  the  Meiji  Era,  by 
W.  W.  McLaren. 


NATIONALITY  47 


humaneness  and  culture.  So  we  have  found  it  to 
be  in  the  growth  of  all  the  great  nations  of  the 
present  day.  The  provincial  hostilities  of  the  past 
have  largely  died  down,  and  the  larger  group  still 
retains  within  it  all  that  was  valuable  in  the 
manners  and  customs  of  the  various  localities.  But 
the  law  which  has  been  observed  in  the  case  of 
provinces  can  be  seen  also  in  the  contact  of  nations 
living  under  the  same  government,  wherever  that 
government  is  not  repressive  of  one  national  group 
in  favour  of  another. 

Thus,  while  admitting  that  at  present  or  in  the 
immediate  future  the  policy  of  a  state  should  not 
neglect  the  existence  of  primitive  national  passions 
and  narrow  views  of  nationality,  we  do  not  admit 
that  this  situation  is  inevitable  or  eternal.  Already 
we  see  a  change  occurring.  A  careful  policy,  there- 
fore, need  not  be  intransigent.  It  may  be  based 
upon  the  expectation  that  the  finer  meaning  of 
nationality  and  patriotism  will  increasingly  be 
understood  :  for  the  present  situation  is  not  in  the 
eternal  nature  of  things.  The  whole  meaning  of 
nationality  and  patriotism  may  be  transformed,  or 
those  with  noble  minds  may  learn  to  control  the 
meanness  of  their  countrymen. 

So  far,  indeed,  from  nationality  proving  an  in- 
superable obstacle  to  co-operation  between  states, 
all  the  evidence  seems  to  show  that  national  groups 
can  only  make  progress  in  civilisation  when  there 
is  not  conflict  between  them.  We  may  believe 
firmly  in  the  importance  of  nationality,  and  for  that 


4S  THE  WORLD  OF  STATES 

very  reason  assist  in  the  amicable  contact  of  nations, 
because  what  is  finest  and  best  in  nationality  can 
only  so  be  developed. 

Our  argument,  then,  shows  that  the  divisions 
between  the  states  of  the  world  are  not  simply 
administrative.  They  are  due  in  part  to  deeper 
emotional  differences  of  nationality  and  national 
tradition.  But  these  differences  are  understood  in 
many  ways — to  some  they  are  differences  of 
wealth  or  power  or  mere  number,  to  others  they  are 
differences  of  language,  literature,  and  moral 
tradition.  Each  interpretation  of  national  differ- 
ences affecting  state-contact  is  part  of  the  truth, 
but  it  is  undeniable  that  the  "  material  "  differences 
are  less  valuable  and  important.  State  policy 
should  therefore  be  based  rather  upon  moral  than 
upon  material  differences,  although  no  sane 
political  action  should  neglect  even  the  mere 
differences  of  number  in  each  group. ,  And  if  the 
emphasis  in  interpreting  nationality  be  put  upon 
differences  of  character  and  tradition,  there  seems 
to  be  no  reason  why  the  division  into  states  should 
result  in  hostility  between  states. 

The  state-system  at  present  is  not  by  any  means 
'.admirable;  but  we  must  acknowledge  the  import- 
ance and  even  the  value  of  any  system  which 
provides  a  moderate  amount  of  order.  It  should 
not  be  changed  except  for  a  perfectly  definite  alter- 
native, and  it  can  hardly  ever  be  changed  for  the 
better  by  force.  National  aspirations  are  not  the 
most  important  factor  in  the  real  life  of  the 


NATIONALITY  49 


majority  of  men,  women,  and  children;  and  the 
real  interests  of  any  group  of  men  cannot  be; 
rendered  altogether  or  chiefly  in  the  terms  of] 
nationality.  As  things  now  stand,  therefore,  the 
general  principle  for  political  action  seems  to  be 
that  the  state-system  should  embody  and  express 
national  differences,  just  as  local  government 
should  embody  and  express  the  character  and  inte- 
rests of  the  people  of  one  "  region."  But  to 
express  and  embody  differences,  if  the  differences 
are  moral,  should  not  involve  isolation  or  hostility 
between  groups,  just  as  the  preservation  of  indi- 
vidual character  should  not  involve  hatred  or 
suspicion  between  individuals.  Only  the  meanest 
differences  can  be  preserved  by  isolation,  for  the 
finer  distinctions  are  promoted  by  amicable 
contact. 

We  seem  now  to  be  in  that  middle  place, 
between  what  ought  to  be  done  and  what  is  actually 
done,  which  is  usually  called  Utopia.  For  we  have 
acknowledged  that  nationality  is  generally  under- 
stood in  such  a  way  that  one  group  might  easily 
oppress  another  if  an  opportunity  occurred;  and 
yet  we  have  said  that  there  is  nothing  in  the  nature 
of  nationality,  especially  in  the  finer  sense  of  the 
word,  to  warrant  or  excuse  a  mutual  suspicion. 
The  state-system  at  present  embodies  both 
tendencies;  for  the  grouping  of  many  nationalities 
within  single  states  shows  that  nationalities  can 
exist  in  amicable  contact,  and  the  separation  of 
states  shows  that  powerful  nations  still  fear  the 


50  THE  WORLD  OF  STATES 

dominance  of  some  other.  But  the  recognition  of 
opposing  tendencies  does  not  transfer  us  at  once  to 
Utopia.  We  need  not  seek  an  escape  from  the 
primitive  passions  of  men  by  treating  them  as 
angels.  What,  then,  might  be  done  ?  Upon  what 
principle  can  inter-state  relations  be  based  if 
national  differences  are  believed  to  be  important  ? 

In  the  first  place,  we  cannot  be  certain  that  men 
will  naturally  be  amicable  if  they  know  others 
better.  The  quarrels  of  relatives  are  well  known; 
and  perhaps  differences  of  race  are  more  irritating 
when  we  are  always  being  reminded  of  them.  The 
policy  of  states  cannot,  therefore,  be  based  upon  a 
greater  commingling  of  nationalities.  But  political 
co-operation  is  quite  distinct  from  physical  cgn- 
tact :  Australians  and  Canadians  may  co-operate 
without  living  in  the  same  corner  of  the  earth  or 
even  without  being  perpetually  reminded  of  each 
other's  habits  and  customs.  And  in  this  sense  the 
policy  of  the  state  might  very  well  be  one  of 
co-operation  between  groups  nationally  distinct. 
Thus  alliance  in  time  of  war,  or  with  a  view  to  war, 
entirely  subordinates  national  differences  and  yet 
does  not  involve  any  undervaluing  of  them.  The 
majority  of  men  are  willing  to  fight  on  the  same 
side  with  nearly  every  other  nation,  race,  or  tribe; 
and  neither  of  two  allied  races  is  supposed  to  feel 
any  suspicion  of  the  other,  perhaps  because  sus- 
picion is  concentrated  upon  some  third.  But, 
whatever  the  reason,  it  is  clear  that  a  distinct 
nationality  can  be  recognised  without  a  feeling  of 


NATIONALITY 


hostility;  and  the  policy  of  the  state  might  well  be 
based  rather  upon  the  tendency  to  co-operation 
when  the  task  is  obvious  than  upon  the  mutual 
hostility  which  arises  when  nothing  is  being  done. 

The  principle,  then,  is  this :  positive  co- 
operation in  definitely  conceived  tasks  is  the  besr 
method  of  eliminating  the  primitive  passions  and 
ennobling  the  meaning  of  nationality.  It  is, 
indeed,  asking  much  of  official  diplomacy  that  it 
should  discover  such  common  tasks  as  will  induce 
men  of  distinct  nationality  to  co-operate.  It  means 
nothing  less  than  discovering  a  substitute  for  war 
in  so  far  as  war  is  an  outlet  ror  energies.  For  our 
implied  assumption  is  this :  what  makes  men 
fight  on  the  same  side  willingly  with  men  of  alien 
race  is  not  delight  in  fighting  but  the  perception  of 
something  definite  to  be  done.  And  even  in  the 
labours  of  peace  what  prevents  national  hostilities 
between  the  emigrants  in  the  United  States  is, 
partly  at  least,  the  need  to  labour  at  the  same  tasks. 
Thus  in  a  wider  sphere  the  co-operation  of  many 
3tates  would  take  all  the  mutual  suspicion  from 
national  feeling  if  the  task  to  be  done  were  felt  to 
be  important. 

We  may  leave  it  there.  Further  and  more 
definite  suggestions  cannot  easily  be  made  in  a 
summary  form.  But  we  must  insist  that  the  mean- 
ings given  to  nationality  are  various  and  the 
passions  to  which  it  gives  rise  very  flexible.  Thert 
is  nothing  in  its  nature  which  proves  intractable  tc 
the  finer  suggestions  of  civilised  thought,  and 

E  2 


52  THE  WORLD  OF  STATES 

there  is  no  reason  at  all  to  suppose  that  distinctions 
of  nationality,  even  if  they  now  cause  hostility  or 
suspicion,  should  always  and  inevitably  do  so.  In 
this  matter  a  more  imaginative  appeal  than  has 
usually  been  made  might  easily  and  rapidly 
transform  the  relations  between  states. 


CHAPTER  IV:   ECONOMICS   AND 
FOREIGN   POLICY 

IT  may  now  be  said  that  although  true  national 
spirit  may  not  make  states  necessarily  hostile 
yet  economic  interest  divides  them.     It  will  be 
urged  that  in  a  perfect  world  groups  of  men  may 
share  and  share  alike,  but  here  and  now  such  groups 
must  struggle;  and  the  very  fact  that  they  are 
politically  organised  in  separate  groups  may  be 
thought  to  make  economic  rivalry  essential. 

There  is,  indeed,  an  intimate  connection  between 
the  administration  of  government  and  the  produc- 
tion and  distribution  of  wealth;  but  the  two 
problems  are  not  identical,  as  the  nineteenth 
century  seems  to  have  imagined,  for  Economics  is 
one  science  and  Politics  another.  A  very  wealthy 
group,  and  even  a  group  in  which  wealth  was  fairly 
distributed,  might  be  a  very  badly  governed 
group;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  skill  of  administra- 
tion or  increase  of  liberty  in  a  group  might  co-exist 
with  a  general  poverty.  Rome  was  richer  under 
Augustus  than  Athens  was  under  Pericles,  but  that 
Athens  was  a  more  excellent  political  whole  than 
that  Rome.  A  small  state  must  necessarily  be  less 
wealthy  than  a  large  one,  but  it  may  be  a  more 
secure  home  for  liberty.  For  the  wealth  of  a  state 
depends  in  the  main  on  the  total  amount  of  taxes 
paid  to  a  central  authority,  but  the  political  excel- 
lence of  a  state  depends  upon  the  understanding 
of  the  real  needs  of  its  citizens  by  those  who 
govern  it.  And  in  proportion  as  the  state  is  vaster 
so  the  separation  between  governors  and  governed 
is  more  extreme.  Thus  great  states  tend  to 


54  THE  WORLD  OF  STATES 

be  politically  retrogressive  while  they  become 
wealthier.  Indeed,  a  government  or  a  people  may 
be  preoccupied  with  problems  of  wealth  so  com- 
pletely as  to  endanger  order  and  liberty. 

The  connection  of  the  two  interests  of  men,  and 
of  the  two  studies  which  arise  out  of  them,  cannot 
be  discussed  here.  It  is  sufficient  if  it  be  recognised 
that  we  can  consider  economic  forces  or  interests 
from  the  point  of  view  of  those  who  are  primarily 
interested  in  good  government  and  liberty.  We 
do  not  suppose  that  good  government  can  exist 
without  a  correct  economic  policy,  just  as  wre  do 
not  suppose  that  it  is  possible  to  develop  great 
genius  until  food  for  bare  sustenance  is  secure. 
But  the-  two  interests,  however  intimately  con- 
nected in  real  life,  may  be  distinguished  for  our 
purposes  here;  and,  having  distinguished  them,  we 
must  allow  in  our  analysis  of  the  present  situation 
for  the  effects  of  the  desire  for  wealth  on  the 
success  of  government  and  for  the  effects  of  the 
desire  for  justice  upon  the  pursuit  of  wealth. 
Political  life  and  action  is  not  the  simple  pursuit 
of  a  simple  end,  but  the  adjustment  of  many 
different  interests.  Even  the  high  desire  for 
justice  and  liberty  is  affected  by  cruder  ambitions, 
and  in  its  turn  affects  the  lower  activities  of 
men.  But  only  those  economic  facts  must  be 
referred  to  here  which  concern  the  separation 
or  the  holding  together  of  states.  We  must 
discover  how  far  states  are  affected  in  their  relation, 
one  to  the  other,  by  economic  laws  and  economic 


ECONOMICS  AND  FOREIGN  POLICY  55 

aims;  and  we  shall  call  economic  all  that  part  of  life 
which  is  concerned  with  material  commodities 
having  money  value. 

All  states  are  still  in  a  certain  sense  economic 
units.  They  are  not,  indeed,  such  completely 
separate  economic  units  as  they  once  were,  since 
modern  methods  of  communication  have  made  it 
possible  for  capital  and  labour  to  pass  across 
frontiers;  but  they  are  still  different  economically. 
England  is  industrial,  and  its  production  of  food 
for  itself  is  inadequate;  but  Germany  is  almost 
self-sufficing,  and  the  United  States  of  America 
are  still  more  so.  This  means  that  those  living 
under  the  same  administration  still  have  many 
common  economic  interests.  And  the  organisation 
of  trade  unions  shows  the  appreciation  of  'this  fact, 
since  there  are  no  unions  which  use  collective 
bargaining  for  the  interest  of  workmen  of  two  or 
more  states.  Capitalist  companies  are  often  inter- 
national, but  the  workmen  even  of  these  companies 
have  to  struggle  within  the  frontiers  of  one  state 
or  another.  Great  Socialists  like  Jaures  have 
acknowledged  that  the  national  (state)  groups  must 
set  the  limits  of  practical  Socialist  activity  for  the 
present;  and  even  Syndicalists  in  their  practical 
programmes  do  not  pass  beyond  the  frontiers  of 
the  several  separate  states.  It  seems  to  be  still  felt, 
how  truly  one  cannot  yet  say,  that  the  contest  of 
capital  and  labour  must  be  fought  out  in  each  state 
separately. 

For  such  reasons  the  state  is  often  treated  as  an 


56  THE  WORLD  OF  STATES 

economic  entity,  and  in  practical  politics  economic 
questions  seem  to  rouse  the  greatest  interest.  Thus 
it  comes  about  that  certain  political  changes — in 
law,  for  example — are  recommended  on  the 
ground  that  they  will  pay;  and,  on  the  other  hand, 
certain  economic  changes — death  duties,  &c.— are 
supported  for  political  reasons.  In  the  sphere  of 
external  policy  the  situation  is  the  same;  and  we 
must,  therefore,  note  the  peculiar  relation  of  econo- 
mic and  political  aims  in  that  sphere.  Sometimes 
the  state  or  political  administration  takes  advan- 
tage of  certain  common  economic  interests  among 
its  citizens,  which  divide  them  from  the  citizens 
of  other  states.  For  a  government  may  use  econo- 
mic means  in  order  to  make  the  state  separate  and 
unconnected  with  any  other — a  political  end — al- 
though an  economic  reason  may  be  given  for  it. 
Thus  the  tariff  on  imports  to  the  United  States  is 
excused  not  because  it  produces  more  justice  or 
liberty  anywhere,  but  because  it  increases  the  wealth 
of  the  ctitizens  or  of  the  public  purse.  And  by 
thus  aiming  at  an  economic  gain,  the  state  controls 
more  completely  the  kind  of  industry  which  shall 
flourish  or  decay.  In  Prince  von  Billow's  pro- 
gramme for  state-action  in  Germany  there  was  a 
deliberate  support  of  agriculture  with  a  view  to 
making  the  state  self-sufficing  in  food  in  case  of 
war.*  This  is  an  instance  of  political  control  of 
economic  interests  with  a  view  to  a  political  end. 
In  either  case  the  promoters  of  such  economic 

•^Imperial  Germany,  p.  208.     Ed.  1914,  Eng.  trans. 


ECONOMICS  AND  FOREIGN  POLICY  57 

measures  have  their  eyes  upon  other  states,  and  aim 
at  a  sort  of  political  advantage  as  against  these  other 
states.  We  have  here  economic  action  taken  for 
political  ends;  but  the  political  ends  are  conceived 
in  the  terms  of  wealth  and  power  and  only  given  a 
rhetorical  covering  by  references  to  national 
necessities. 

On  the  other  hand,  in  foreign  as  in  domestic 
policy  groups  of  men  with  the  same  economic 
interest  often  use  their  political  administration  in 
order  to  further  their  own  economic  purposes. 
Thus  a  strong  financial  group  can  persuade  politi- 
cians to  use  diplomacy  and  even  to  threaten  war, 
in  order  to  obtain  a  "  concession  "  or  to  promote 
an  economic  scheme.  The  financiers  are  not,  there- 
fore, to  be  condemned  as  villains,  since  they  prob- 
ably think  that  what  is  for  their  good  is  for  the 
good  of  all  their  fellow-citizens,  and  the  majority 
of  citizens  are  completely  confused  as  to  the  pro- 
motion of  their  own  economic  or  political  interests 
by  a  strong  group  of  their  own  blood.  Men  easily 
consent  to  fantastic  misuse  of  their  own  blood  and 
spirit  if  they  believe  vaguely  that  honour  or  pres- 
tige will  accrue  to  them :  and  most  men  are  very 
well  satisfied  with  vicarious  glory.  That  is  why 
they  have  willingly  died,  all  through  history,  for 
kings  with  an  eye  to  business  or  a  taste  for 
<c  victory." 

The  prestige  or  standing  which  results  from  the 
use  of  armed  threats  to  secure  an  economic  gain 
is  the  only  reward  the  majority  have  for  the  use  of 


58  THE  WORLD  OF  STATES 

political  machinery  in  the  interests  of  a  financial 
company.  But  whatever  the  explanation  of  the 
.phenomenon,  it  is  certain  that  systems  of  political 
administration  have  been  used  by  small  groups  of 
their  citizens  to  attain  economic  ends.  A  certain 
advantage  is  gained  by  one  state  over  another  if 
the  former  state  is  well  organised  and  has  a  place 
for  liberty :  and  that  advantage  may  be  used  for 
ends  that  are  not  the  political  ends  of  the  promo- 
tion of  justice  and  liberty.  That  is  what  we  mean 
by  a  misuse  of  political  organisation  in  the  pursuit 
of  wealth. 

The  analysis  of  the  situation  becomes  more  diffi- 
cult when  the  group  of  financiers  who  control 
political  forces  does  not  belong  to  any  single  state. 
For  then  we  have  the  peculiar  experience  of  a  com- 
pany of  men  from  five  or  six  different  states  using 
the  machinery  of  government,  and,  perhaps,  even 
the  patriotism  of  peoples  to  support  one  state 
against  another  or  to  weaken  all  states  by  inducing 
them  to  enter  into  conflict.  There  can  be  little 
doubt  that  the  great  armament  firms  in  the  past 
have  sold  their  instruments  of  war  by  studiously 
fomenting  the  tendency  to  warfare :  and  yet  the 
members  of  one  such  firm  might  belong  to  the 
same  two  states  which  were  to  attack  one  another 
in  order  that  they  might  need  defence.  Krupps 
supplied  guns  to  Russia.  Schneider  supplied  guns 
to  the  Turks.  And  in  these  cases  we  should  be 
unjust  if  we  imagined  that  the  great  armament 
firms  were  bodies  of  evil-minded  fools.  Their 


ECONOMICS  AND  FOREIGN  POLICY  59 

action  is  guided  by  men  probably  as  vaguely 
humane  as  the  majority,  if  also  as  unimaginative. 
The  important  fact  is  that  they  benefit  from  politi- 
cal disturbance  and  insecurity. 

This  tangle  of  different  passions  and  divergent 
purposes  may  well  seem  too  confusing  for  the 
average  man  to  understand.  For  what  we  have 
given  is,  indeed,  the  most  summary  and  simple 
view  of  the  facts :  and  it  is  sometimes  urged  that 
the  very  complexity  of  the  problems  involved  in 
the  jungle  of  foreign  policies  and  economic 
schemes  is  a  good  reason  for  leaving  such  issues 
to  the  few  who  are  initiated.  Those,  however, 
who  urge  the  complexity  of  the  facts  also  present 
us  at  certain  crises  with  very  simple  issues;  for 
when  they  need  help  they  are  ready  enough  to  cah 
upon  the  majority  to  understand.  And  therefore 
we  may  suspect  that  underlying  all  the  tangle  of 
diplomacy  and  finance  are  certain  very  simple 
passions  and  very  limited  ideas.  It  is  these,  and 
not  the  complexity  of  the  problems  which  make 
the  progress  of  international  understanding 
difficult.  What  are  these  simple  passions? 

Men  working  desperately  or  lethargically  all 
day  long  for  subsistence  or  for  wealth  see  other 
men  chiefly  as  rivals.  And  the  world  is  economic- 
minded  now  as  that  of  the  Middle  Ages  was 
minded  religiously.  Groups  of  men  all  of  whom 
labour  ceaselessly  for  cash  values,  whether  by 
brute  necessity  or  by  choice,  regard  other  groups 
as  rivals  at  the  same  task.  It  may  even  be  true 


60  THE  WORLD  OF  STATES 

that  in  this  sphere  what  is  one  man's  gain  is 
another's  loss :  for  where  there  is  only  one  good 
customer  someone  gains  by  attracting  him  and 
others  lose.  And  so  in  the  larger  sphere  of  world 
markets  one  group  sells  and  buys  in  Argentine, 
another  in  China,  and  so  on.  It  is  undeniable 
that  there  is  economic  conflict  of  interest  between 
large  groups  of  men  and  that  in  a  world  of 
ravenous  money-making,  anger  and  violence  be- 
tween individuals  and  between  groups  may  seem 
the  natural  preliminaries  to  the  possession  of 
wealth.  Contending  grocers  are  "  natural  "  in  this 
sense :  and  the  passions  of  high  finance  are  more 
violent  but  not  more  noble.  Foreign  policy  so  in- 
spired is  not  different  in  kind  from  what  in 
America  is  called  "  graft "  or  what  in  England  is 
called  municipal  corruption.  And  the  trouble  is 
that  it  is  useless  to  search  for  the  criminals;  for  most 
men  are  well-intentioned.  It  is  an  old  saying,  and  it 
was  old  when  Lucian  said  it,  that  it  is  the  admira- 
tion of  those  who  have  not  wealth  which  gives 
the  evil  power  to  those  who  have  it.  If  the 
admiration  and  imitation  of  millionaires  could  be 
destroyed,  high  finance  would  no  longer  be 
thought  a  noble  activity  for  political  abilities. 
Foreign  affairs  would  be  different  if  we  could  dis- 
entagle  the  desire  for  liberty  from  the  appetite  for 
wealth.  But  even  those  who  are  neither  guides 
nor  governors  really  imagine  that  although  it  ;s 
disgraceful  to  be  in  debt  for  a  shilling,  it  is  glorious 
to  be  bankrupt  for  millions.  The  passions  which 


ECONOMICS  AND  FOREIGN  POLICY  61 

underlie  economic  rivalry  of  states  are,  therefore, 
not  peculiar  to  the  contact  between  governmental 
systems :  they  affect  all  our  social  lire. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  is  a  modern  tendency 
to  recognise  that  individual  contest  in  the 
economic  sphere  is  futile.  We  have  already 
common  ownership  in  the  railway  companies, 
since  no  one  shareholder  could  possibly  say  that  any 
one  section  of  the  line  "  belongs  "  to  him.  One 
shareholder  does  not  usually  attempt  "  the  sur- 
vival of  the  fittest "  against  another.  Labour  is 
partly  co-operative  in  all  great  factories,  since  the 
whole  article  is  worked  at  by  many  hands,  and 
economic  proceeds  are  shared  in  every  payment  of 
dividends.  It  is  true  that  this  partial  co-opera- 
tion seems  only  to  lead  up  to  group  contests  of  a 
more  deadly  kind.  But  even  here,  besides  the 
glaring  examples  of  contest  between  companies, 
there  are  many  instances  of  co-operation.  Banking 
companies  assist  shipping,  and  these  again  assist 
railway  companies,  and  these  mining  companies. 
The  economic  world  depends  upon  this  co-opera- 
tion and  upon  the  elaborate  system  of  credit  which 
implies  that  the  majority  of  men  trust  one 
another. 

Undoubtedly,  however,  the  emphasis  in  the 
modern  mind  is  put  upon  the  conflict  of  economic 
interests,  and  this  fact,  in  the  world  of  the  imagi- 
nation, very  much  affects  political  issues.  The 
popular  mind  in  every  country  views  life  as  a 
struggle  against  other  men  for  food  and  clothing 


62  THE  WORLD  OF  STATES 

and  possessions.  Labour  as  a  class  is  as  simple- 
minded  as  any  financial  group  if  wealth  and  power 
are  put  before  it  as  the  purpose  of  political  action. 
The  admiration  for  wealth  and  power  is  a  strong 
force  with  those  who  have  little,  and  the  attain- 
ment of  power  is  an  accepted  excuse  for  every 
desertion. 

We  see,  then,  that  economic  and  political  aims, 
though  distinct,  are  closely  connected,  and  in  the 
minds  of  the  majority  completely  confused.  In 
such  confusion  the  passions  are  strong  which 
obstruct  the  political  organisation  of  inter-state 
relations.  Whether  we  like  it  or  not,  such 
passions  exist :  they  have  behind  them  an 
immense  weight  of  tradition,  and  to  the  ordinary 
economic-political  mind  they  are  "  the  nature  of 
things."  But  even  if  we  could  not  change  them 
there  is  no  reason  why  we  should  not  criticise 
them;  and  even  if  they  are  the  nature  of  things 
they  may  be  desperately  bad — like  cancer. 

The  question  of  policy,  therefore,  arises.  Ought 
we  to  keep  states  apart  because  of  economic 
needs  ?  It  is  said  that  the  government  must  sup- 
port the  industries  of  the  country  or  the  im- 
poverishment of  trade  will  in  the  end  weaken  the 
government  itself.  And  to  support  industries  in 
this  sense  means  preventing  the  like  industries  of 
another  state  from  entering  into  equal  competition 
within  the  borders  of  the  state.  But  this  seems 
to  result  in  benefiting  a  few  industries  at  the 
expense  of  the  majority;  since,  if  these  few  indus- 


ECONOMICS  AND  FOREIGN  POLICY  63 

tries  are  to  be  artificially  supported,  the  others 
must  pay  the  taxes  for  their  support. 

When  it  becomes  obvious  that  "  protection  " 
does  not  pay,  those  who  maintain  it  repudiate  so 
m£an  an  intention.  The  position  is  then  taken  that 
not  all  industries,  but  only  those  necessary  to  make 
the  group  independent,  must  be  protected  by  poli- 
tical measures.  Key  industries,  it  is  said,  must  be 
preserved  and  young  industries  promoted.  But 
this  argument  implies  that  the  states  must  be  kept 
apart,  not  for  economic  gain,  but  for  political 
necessity,  and  it  is  even  admitted  that  the  state- 
group  might  have  to  lose  money  in  order  to  attain 
political  security.  This  practically  suggests  that 
economic  need  does  not  keep  states  apart,  or  that 
economic  need  might  bring  them  together,  and 
must  be  resisted.  The  real  meaning  seems  to  be 
that  in  case  war  should  produce  isolation  we  must 
begin  isolation  at  once.  And  on  that  ground  it  is 
quite  reasonable  to  make  the  state  subserve  in- 
dustry in  order  that  when  war  is  declared  industry 
may  be  controlled  by  the  state. 

The  organisation  of  the  state  on  a  basis  of  war 
is  perfectly  possible.  The  policy  of  preparing  the 
sinews  of  war  in  order  to  secure  peace  would  lead, 
if  it  attained  its  end,  to  the  absurd  situation 
of  the  whole  world  standing  to  arms  and  no  one 
ever  using  them!  This  would  be  peace  at  the 
price  of  reducing  the  human  race  to  pure  lunacy. 
And  if  there  is  never  to  be  any  end  to  the  danger 
of  war  there  is  no  reason  why  we  should  not  make 


64  THE  WORLD  OF  STATES 

every  state  or  every  alliance  of  states  a  perfectly 
self-sufficing  economic  whole.  But  unfortunately 
we  cannot  stop  there.  For  the  completion  of  this 
economic  plan  would  involve  the  resistance  to 
every  modern  tendency  towards  ease  of  communi- 
cation. Railways  would  have  to  stop  at  frontiers; 
ships  would  touch  at  no  foreign  land,  and  every 
group  of  people  would  lose  such  conveniences  of 
life  as  their  climate  or  organisation  made  it  impos- 
sible to  produce  for  themselves.  The  result  would 
certainly  not  be  good  for  economic  progress,  and, 
therefore,  economic  need  certainly  does  not  justify 
political  isolation. 

The  further  question  is  whether  political  need 
is  sufficient  to  justify  economic  isolation;  and  it 
clearly  is  not.  For  the  political  need  is  dependent 
on  the  probability  of  war,  and  if  war  is  less  likely 
with  this  or  that  state,  economic  isolation  is  less 
necessary  as  regards  this  or  that  state.  If  we  are 
unlikely  to  be  at  war  with  the  United  States  of 
America,  it  is  foolish  to  aim  at  isolating  ourselves 
from  them.  But  that  is  the  merest  preliminary  to 
the  main  argument.  For  if  by  any  means  war 
could  be  made  unlikely  with  all  states,  there  would 
be  no  need  for  isolation,  and  the  best  way  to  make 
it  less  likely  is  not  to  isolate.  The  political  reasons 
for  Free  Trade  as  a  policy  of  peace  and  security 
seem  perfectly  sound.  For  political  need  seems  to 
point  rather  to  amicable  organisation  of  inter-state 
co-operation. 

But,  in  fact,  the  majority  do  not  believe  that 


ECONOMICS  AND  FOREIGN  POLICY  65 

economic  isolation  is  politically  futile;  and  we 
have  to  reckon  even  with  the  false  beliefs  of  men, 
since  their  actions  are  based  upon  these  false 
beliefs.  For  political  ends,  for  strengthening  ad- 
ministration or  for  securing  one  system  of  govern- 
ment against  danger  from  another,  economic  isola- 
tion is  aimed  at  by  many  states,  although  the 
economic  circumstances  of  the  modern  world  no 
longer  make  complete  isolation  or  self-sufficiency 
possible.  The  French  government,  for  example, 
strictly  excludes  the  traders  of  all  other  states  from 
Morocco  or  Madagascar,  and  even  while  our 
soldiers  in  war  fight  side  by  side,  our  merchants 
are  not  given  free  entrance  to  the  markets  which 
our  fleet  is  protecting.  What,  then,  can  be  the 
practical  policy  adopted  by  any  state,  considering 
that  some  states  have  adopted  and  are  likely  to 
maintain  economic  "  protection "  for  political 
ends  ?  The  easiest  answer  is  that  a  counterprotec- 
tion  should  be  adopted,  on  the  same  principle  as 
armies  are  raised  to  meet  other  armies.  And, 
indeed,  the  adoption  of  any  other  practical  policy 
would  only  be  possible  if  the  political  imagination 
were  less  limited  than  it  is;  for,  at  present,  if  one 
group  shows  a  certain  form  of  hostility,  other 
groups  immediately  adopt  the  same  form  of  hos- 
tility to  the  first.  It  is  possible,  however,  to 
counteract  all  the  evil  effects  of  protectionism  by 
inter-state  organisation  for  the  control  of  trade 
and  investment.  This  is  the  third  stage  of  deve- 
lopment:  first,  protectionism;  secondly,  "free" 


66  THE  WORLD  OF  STATES 

trade;  and,  third,  inter-state  control.  This  need 
not  involve  an  international  executive  if  states 
agreed  by  treaty  to  see  that  international  agree- 
ments were  adhered  to  in  their  jurisdictions. 
Above  all,  the  beginnings  need  not  be  elaborate. 
But  to  aim  at  organisation  in  this  sphere  is  the  best 
purpose  of  foreign  policy  with  respect  to  economic 
needs. 

The  conclusion  is  this.  We  must  conceive  more 
clearly  the  ends  for  which  we  are  working,  and  dis- 
cover more  quickly  the  means  by  which  these 
ends  may  be  attained.  The  primary  needs  in  the 
political  sphere  are  not  wealth  or  power,  but  justice 
and  liberty  :  and  if  these  latter  cannot  be  had  with- 
out a  sacrifice  of  the  former,  we  must  be  prepared 
to  lose  wealth  and  power.  The  real  trouble  in 
every  state  is  that  those  who  have  wealth  and 
power  have  also  as  much  justice  and  liberty  as  they 
want,  so  that  to  sacrifice  the  wealth  and  power  of  a 
state  seems  to  be  all  loss  for  them  and  no  gain. 
On  the  other  hand,  if  he  strongly  desires  justice 
and  liberty,  the  poor  man  readily  despises  wealth 
and  power,  for  he  has  none  to  lose.  The  social 
and  economic  divisions  within  every  state  make 
it  practically  impossible  in  real  life  for  any  state 
really  to  sacrifice  wealth  anH  power,  for  no  state  is 
yet  a  real  union  of  men  devoted  to  one  clearly  con- 
ceived political  end.  But  we  do  not  now  suggest 
that  states  should  offer,  one  to  the  other,  their  in- 
comes or  their  protectorates.  That  would  be  fan- 
tastic. What  we  do  suggest  is  that  all  citizens  in 


ECONOMICS  AND  FOREIGN  POLICY  67 

every  state  should  feel  that  political  administration 
exists  in  order  to  promote  justice  and  develop 
liberty,  and  that  all  citizens  should  criticise  politi- 
cal action  with  reference  to  these.  We  do  not  sug- 
gest that  wealth,  or  what  is  called  "  security," 
should  be  neglected  entirely;  nor  is  there  any  prob- 
ability that  men  will  all  become  unpractical 
dreamers.  But  a  little  more  attention  to  such 
realities  as  justice  and  liberty  would  do  something 
to  redress  the  balance  of  interest  which  at  present 
controls  political  action,  especially  in  foreign 
affairs.  We  have  enough  of  windy  rhetoric  on 
ideal  ends;  it  is  time  that  the  public  showed 
itself  ready  to  sacrifice  something  for  those  pur- 
poses to  which  its  chosen  spokesmen  gave  lip- 
service.  Life  is  readily  sacrificed;  but  never  yet 
has  any  state  deliberately  and  with  the  full  approval 
of  the  majority  of  its  citizens  sacrificed  its  wealth 
or  any  part  of  its  dominions.  This  will  only  be 
questioned  by  those  who  imagine  that  what  one 
loses  is  sacrificed*  Accidental  or  enforced  loss  is 
not  sacrifice,  for  that  word  implies  free  choice  and 
deliberate  giving  up  of  what  may  be  kept. 

Let  us,  however,  omit  further  discussion  of 
economic  passions.  For  whatever  our  attitude  may 
be  towards  our  "  possessions,"  if  we  really  value 
political  justice  and  liberty  we  must  definitely 
adopt  a  new  policy  towards  trade  and  investment. 
What  is  needed  for  world-order  and  world-liberty 
is  not  protection  nor  "  free  "  trade,  but  organised 
trade.  We  cannot  afford  to  leave  economic  needs 

P2 


68  THE  WORLD  OF  STATES 

uncontrolled — so  far  we  agree  with  the  "  protec- 
tionists " ;  but  the  control  must  not  be  exercised 
for  the  economic  benefit  of  anyone.  The  control 
of  trade  and  investment  must  be  established  upon 
political  and  not  economic  grounds,  and  that  con- 
trol must  not  be  for  the  benefit  of  this  or  that 
administration,  but  for  the  benefit  of  world-order 
and  world-liberty  in  general.  It  seems  to  follow, 
then,  that  the  control  should  only  be  exercised  by 
inter-state  councils. 

This  may  seem  a  fantastic  plan;  but,  in  fact, 
the  system  here  suggested  has  already  been  suc- 
cessfully established  in  International  Mercantile 
Marine.*  At  present,  in  normal  times,  regulations 
bind  the  ship-owners  of  all  nations  not  to  allow  too 
extravagant  a  load  upon  their  decks.  But  it  was 
long  supposed  to  be  the  "  interest  "  of  each  to  load 
as  much  as  he  could,  and  interest  was  still  more 
against  such  extra  expenditure  as  was  involved  in 
watertight  compartments  and  life-saving  appara- 
tus. Further,  besides  economic  interests  wrhich 
seemed  to  differ,  there  were  national  customs 
among  the  ship-owners  of  each  nation.  Yet  all  of 
these  have  been  put  aside,  not  for  the  sake  of  a 
theory,  but  because  the  great  ship-owners  found 
an  international  regulation  absolutely  necessary  for 
shipping,  which  in  its  activities  was  quite  inter- 
national. "  It  cannot  be  argued,"  says  Mr.  Woolf, 
"  that  International  Government  and  agreement 

*  Of.  the  fuller  treatment  in  L.  S.  Woolf 's  International 
Government,  p.  169  sq. 


ECONOMICS  AND  FOREIGN  POLICY  69 

was  possible  or  easy  in  the  Maritime  Committee, 
because  the  interests  involved  were  unimportant 
or  obviously  the  same.  Yet,  in  practically  every 
case,  and  on  the  most  controversial  subjects,  when 
face  to  face  in  the  conferences,  these  trade  rivals 
were  able  to  come  to  an  agreement.5'* 

Those  who  met  in  the  conferences  for  maritime 
regulation  were  members  of  private  economic 
groups,  and  the  result  was  a  "  private  "  and  non- 

fovernmental  Union.  But  states  themselves 
ave  begun  to  control  trade  and  investment  upon 
the  principles  here  suggested,  and  all  that  we  now 
propose  is  that  the  method  shall  be  extended.  In 
states,  acting  separately,  there  are  laws  controlling 
"dangerous55  occupations;  there  are  restrictions 
on  child-labour,  and  some  trades  (e.g.,  opium  and 
prostitution)  are  actually  forbidden  altogether.! 
Thus  we  have  examples  of  separate  state  action 
which  is  not  aimed  at  the  mere  advantage  of  this 
or  that  state.  The  purpose  is  a  common  one;  the 
good  aimed  at  is  that  of  all  men.  And  we  may 
go  still  further,  for  states  have  agreed  together  to 
control  economic  needs  or  activities  by  common 
action.  International  labour  legislation  is  begin- 
ning. Conventions  have  been  signed  by  several 
states,  binding  each  to  abolish  night-labour  for 
women,  and  to  stop  the  manufacture  of  matches 
made  with  white  phosphorus.  Against  both 
reforms  economic  interests  were  urged;  but  the 

*  Woodf,  p.  173. 
t  Woolf,  p.  188. 


70  THE  WORLD  OF  STATES 

first  step  has  been  made  in  regulating  manufacture, 
on  principles  not  economic,  by  international  agree- 
ment. Surely  it  is  not  fantastic  to  suggest  that 
investment,  exploitation,  and  the  use  of 
"  coloured "  labour  should  be  controlled  by  a 
Council  of  the  civilised  states  ?  It  would  then  be 
found  that  there  is  as  little  in  economics  to  make 
governments  quarrel  as  there  is  in  nationality. 
And,  but  for  the  set-back  to  civilisation  which 
has  been  occurring  since  1914,  perhaps  the  dis- 
covery might  have  been  already  made. 

Indeed,  if  we  look  beyond  the  mere  detail  of 
what  is  done  to  the  general  principles  which  under- 
lie all  action,  we  shall  find  much  that  is  of  interest 
in  the  control  of  economic  forces  by  the  state  in 
times  of  war.  We  need  not  refer  here  to  internal 
labour-control  or  to  the  incidence  of  taxation,  but 
only  to  that  part  of  economic  interest  which 
connects  or  divides  states.  With  respect  to  this 
it  is  well  known  that  the  Allies  have  excluded 
certain  commodities  from  neutral  countries,  have 
restricted  the  import  and  export  of  other  goods 
from  and  to  their  own  realms,  and  have  permitted 
or  supported  certain  interchange  between  neutrals 
and  their  own  merchants.  No  one  pretends  that 
this  control  was  exercised  for  economic  reasons. 
The  reasons  were  plainly  political.  And  Germany 
was  compelled  to  exercise  the  same  sort  of  control 
—for  example,  first  in  refusing  and  then  in  control- 
ling the  import  of  tobacco.  Certain  commodities 
were  assiduously  given  preference  for  export,  for 


ECONOMICS  AND  FOREIGN  POLICY  71 

example,  to  Switzerland;  and  the  import  of 
certain  other  commodities,  especially  foodstuffs, 
was  politically  assisted. 

The  purposes  of  this  control  were  primitive,  as 
is  every  purpose  subordinate  to  war;  but  a  higher 
or  more  subtle  purpose  might  induce  a  more  subtle 
control.  The  obstacle  to  freedom,  which  such 
control  might  be  in  the  hands  of  contending 
govenments,  would  be  overcome  if  the  control 
were  exercised  by  states  in  council.  And  in  place 
of  a  protection  of  vested  interests  in  different 
states  we  should  have  the  limitation  of  economic 
appetite  for  the  protection  of  those  who  suffer 
exploitation.  The  states  of  the  world  could  easily 
suppress  such  trade  as  ministers  to  sexual  vice. 
They  could  limit  the  appetite  for  the  luxuries  of 
the  few  in  the  interest  of  food  for  the  many.  They 
could  regulate  the  use  of  labour  in  "  unde- 
veloped "  countries;  and  they  could  support  such 
commerce  as  made  for  good  will  and  peace.  Thus 
and  thus  only  would  the  economic  needs  of  men 
be  subordinated  to  their  political  life,  and  there 
would  be  no  reason  why  economic  rivalry  even 
between  large  groups  within  the  states  should 
commit  the  states  to  political  conflict. 


CHAPTER  V:   DEFENCE 

IT  may  be  said  that  in  actual  fact  nationality 
is  always  in  danger.  Nations,  even  if  they 
might  be  friends,  certainly  do  not  perceive  the 
advantage  of  amicable  contact,  and  a  cynic  might 
argue  that  what  no  nation  practices  cannot  be  good 
for  any.  Therefore  it  may  be  suggested  that  our 
supposed  proofs  of  the  gain  of  nationality  from 
amity  with  other  nations  were  really  mistaken. 
Many,  indeed,  would  in  practice  regard  them  as 
mistaken,  and  would  be  convinced  that  there  was 
a  fallacy  somewhere,  even  if  they  could  not  dis- 
cover it.  For  they  would  feel  that  the  nature  of 
nationality  is  expressed  in  the  conditions  at  present 
ruling  the  contact  of  nations,  and  that  there  is  no 
arguing  with  nature. 

The  danger  to  nationality  is  not,  however,  due 
to  any  unchangeable  law.  It  is  foolish  to  treat 
nationality  as  though  it  was  a  natural  species 
and  to  accept  the  absurd  belief  in  a  struggle  for 
existence  as  applicable  to  any  and  every  unit.  In- 
deed, there  is  no  reason  why  this  unpleasant,  but 
apparently  attractive,  faith  should  not  involve  a 
statement  that  one  eye  struggles  for  existence  with 
the  other,  and  one  hand  with  another  in  the  same 
body.  The  parts  of  an  amoeba  may  struggle  for 
existence,  one  against  another,  for  all  it  matters  to 
our  present  subject.  It  has  no  bearing  upon 
nationality;  since  the  whole  conception  of  inevit- 
able struggle  and  survival  as  applied  to  nations  is 
due  to  a  confused  metaphor. 

The  mystical  belief  concerning  nations,  which 
implies  that  they  are  large  bodily  organisms,  is 


DEFENCE  73 


merely  a  device  to  cover  the  escape  of  the  senti- 
mentalist when  he  sees  Reason  approaching. 
Behind  a  cloud  of  misunderstood  scientific  phrases 
and  misinterpreted  poetry  those  take  refuge  who 
are  aware  of  their  own  incompetence  to  observe 
correctly  and  to  judge  reasonably  the  actual  facts 
of  experience.  For  the  supposed  natural  law  of 
struggle  and  competition  is  almost  entirely  inap- 
plicable to  political  and  social  units,  even  if  it 
has  some  bearing  upon  natural  species.  The 
chief  reason  why  social  groups  are  in  conflict  is 
that  certain  opposing  ideas  and  ideals  are  com 
monly  accepted  in  the  contending  groups,  and 
there  is  nothing  "  inevitable  "  about  such  ideas. 
They  change  from  generation  to  generation,  and 
sometimes  from  year  to  year. 

This  is  the  reason  why  the  natural  enemies  of 
one  generation  are  the  bosom  friends  of  the  next 
Ideals  have  changed,  while  blood  has  not;  and 
ideals,  ideas,  and  emotions  are  much  more  truly 
the  formative  and  directive  forces  of  social  groups 
than  blood  or  language  or  a  common  dwelling- 
place.  The  political  situation  in  the  contact  of 
nations  is,  therefore,  hardly  at  all  to  be  explained 
by  physical  laws,  and  even  if  external  environment 
and  physical  structure  greatly  affect  the  situation, 
the  governing  law  is  psychological  and  ethical 
rather  than  physiological.  But  it  would  be  a  very 
misleading  metaphor  to  speak  of  ideals  and  ideas 
as  if  they  also  were  in  conflict  according  to  a  law 
of  survival.  The  differences  between  the  ideals 


74  THE  WORLD  OF  STATES 

of  different  groups  are  not  expressed,  explained, 
or  resolved  by  the  exercise  of  physical  force. 
Opposing  ideals  do  indeed  drive  men  to  conflict; 
but  the  value  of  the  ideals  is  not  thus  tested,  and 
no  one  really  imagines,  unless  he  is  befogged  by 
metaphor,  that  moral  distinctions  can  ever  thus  be 
made  a  ground  for  the  application  of  a  Law  of 
Evolution.  There  is,  therefore,  hardly  any  excuse 
for  confusing  the  hostility  between  nations  with  a 
purely  physical  conflict :  and  the  laws  of  such  con- 
flict do  not  apply. 

Although  by  no  means  inevitable,  however, 
there  is  an  actual  need  for  defence  of  nation 
against  nation.  It  is  due  partly  to  inherited 
passions,  beliefs,  and  institutions,  partly  to  the 
present  universality  of  the  desire  for  domina- 
tion over  others.  We  think  and  act  as  we  do 
largely  because  of  what  our  own  ancestors  have 
thought  and  done.  If  men  of  our  race  in  the  past 
had  thought  cannibalism  a  useful  political  device 
for  preventing  over-population,  most  of  us  would 
think  that  there  was  "  something  in  it."  Mono- 
gamy coexisting  with  prostitution,  for  example,  is 
not  a  social  custom  for  which  rational  grounds  are 
thought  out  carefully  by  one  generation.  We  see 
a  reason  in  it  and  even  without  reference  to  such 
reason  we  practice  it:  and  the  richer  classes  of 
Mahommedanism  practice  polygamy.  But  no 
candid  thinker  will  suppose  that  the  present 
customs  are  due  to  careful  consideration  of  social 


DEFENCE  75 


means  and  ends  by  the  present  representatives  of 
the  two  traditions. 

Such  also  is  the  situation  with  regard  to  defence 
and  the  "  danger  to  nationality,"  war  and  the  pre- 
paration for  war.  Behind  the  acts  and  plans 
which  make  the  problem  of  defence  is  a  complex 
of  ideas  and  ideals  partly  correct  and  in  the  main 
misleading,  which  is  the  result  of  perhaps  fifty 
thousand  years  of  human  history.  We  need  not 
for  our  present  purpose  distinguish  the  true  from 
the  false;  for  the  social  problem  arises  from  the 
very  fact  that  in  the  mind  of  time  they  are 
confused.  Men  have  thought  that  it  was  good 
and  even  glorious  to  take  what  they  had  the  power 
to  take,  and  that  it  was  noble  to  keep  at  all  costs 
what  they  had.  Edward  III.  of  England  took 
50,000  yards  of  cloth  when  he  sacked  Caen;  but 
he  is  not  treated  by  Froissart  as  a  bellicose  draper. 
What  he  acquired  is  called  "  glory."  Men  have 
supposed  that  the  exceptional  was  the  important : 
they  have  adored  a  thunderstorm,  and  not  a  star. 
They  have  gone  upon  "  quests,"  while  their  own 
homes  crumbled  into  ruin.  They  have  sought 
high  adventure  in  savage  pursuits  and  despised  the 
more  subtle  emotions.  Enjoying  such  grandiose 
activity  they  have  felt  infinite  pity  for  the  victim 
of  others'  acts  and  welcomed  blindness  to  the  pain 
they  themselves  caused.  Tenderness  to  their  own 
land  and  to  the  people  with  whom  they  are  familiar 
is  balanced  by  unimaginativeness  with  respect  to 
what  is  strange.  Again,  the  most  important  facts 


76  THE  WORLD  OF  STATES 

in  social  life  are  the  beliefs  of  men;  for  some- 
times a  greater  difference  is  made  by  what  men 
believe  to  be  the  fact  than  by  the  fact  itself.  4. 
man  marries  because  he  believes  a  woman  to  be 
beautiful  and  not  because  she  is  beautiful.  States 
are  armed  because  men  believe  that  there  is  danger, 
not  because  there  is  danger.  This  does  not  imply 
that  the  beliefs  of  men  are  always  false;  for  a 
bride  may  actually  be  beautiful  and  a  state  may 
actually  be  in  danger.  The  point  is  that  the  belief 
is  sometimes  wrong  and  that  social  beliefs  tend  to 
continue  and  affect  men's  actions  long  after  the 
situation  to  which  the  belief  applies  has  ceased 
to  exist.  Such,  it  seems,  are  men.  We  may  hope 
that  they  will  change,  but  we  must  not  act  as  if 
our  dream  had  come  true. 

But  not  only  are  our  emotions  and  ideas 
coloured  by  the  past;  so,  also,  are  our  institutions. 
And  the  blunders  of  the  past  are  with  us  now  as 
well  as  the  successes.  The  Hundred  Years  War 
between  France  and  England,  the  trivial  bicker- 
ings of  Italian  cities,  the  wars  of  religion  in 
Germany,  the  slaughter  of  peoples  in  the  New 
World  by  Spaniards,  slavery  and  the  lust  for  gold 
and  diamonds — these  have  laid  up  for  us  a 
problem  which  not  all  the  apparatus  of  Constitu- 
tional government  can  solve.  And  nearly  all  the 
great  mistakes  of  history  have  been  made  with  the 
belief  that  nothing  else  could  be  done  or  was  worth 
doing;  for  mistaken  political  judgments  even  more 


DEFENCE  77 


than  criminal  intentions  have  reinforced  absurd 
beliefs. 

The  problem  of  defence,  then,  partly  arises  from 
the  structure  of  the  political  world  to-day  and 
from  all  that  is  implied  in  that  structure.  There 
is  no  state  the  members  of  which  do  not  support 
military  and  naval  forces;  and  such  forces  are 
maintained  in  order  to  be  used,  not  merely  as  an 
unmeaning  parade.  The  greater  part  of  the  wealth 
of  states  is  spent  upon  military  and  naval  forces, 
and  the  majority  of  men  regard  this  as  inevitable. 
We  have,  indeed,  already  seen  that  not  only 
differences  of  method  in  law  and  government  but 
also  distinctions  of  speech  and  custom  and  com- 
peting economic  interests  make  the  development 
of  inter-state  amity  sufficiently  difficult.  But  the 
source  of  the  difficulty  lies  deeper  even  than 
nationality  or  economics.  For  states  are  the  results 
of  the  good  and  evil  passions  of  men.  That  states 
should  be  thus  antagonistic  does  not  show  that 
political  government  is  an  evil  thing,  although 
it  does  show  from  what  primitive  sources  our 
political  energies  arise.  For  the  antagonism  of 
states  is  largely  a  result  of  the  ancient  hostilities 
of  primitive  and  intelligent  tribes.  The  very 
structure  of  government  is  what  it  is  because  of 
the  far  past  in  the  history  of  humanity;  and  we 
cannot  in  a  day  expunge  all  trace  of  the  ape  and 
tiger  in  the  conduct  of  modern  men. 

The  second  great  source  of  the  need  for  defence 
is  the  present  universality  of  the  desire  for 


78  THE  WORLD  OF  STATES 

domination  over  others.  In  external  affairs  par- 
ticularly, primitive  passions  seem  to  have  free 
play;  and  the  actions  of  the  state  with  respect  to 
other  states  seem  to  be  chiefly  affected  by  the 
primitive  egoism  of  conquest.  This  survives  in 
the  relation  of  states,  even  though  in  the  contact 
of  individuals  within  the  state  it  has  been 
somewhat  lessened.*  But  the  desire  for 
domination  is  not  confined  to  external  politics, 
for  nearly  every  state  maintains  economic  and 
social  systems  which  embody  the  same  desire. 
It  is  true  that  it  has  been  found  inconvenient  to 
struggle  privately  for  domination  over  others  by 
the  use  of  private  weapons;  but  the  struggle  still 
continues,  and  it  is  often  supported  by  the  force 
which  is  in  the  hands  of  the  state,  To  put  the 
situation  more  concretely,  domestic  life  in  the 
majority  of  states  is  based  upon  domination — 
domination  of  husband  over  wife  and  of  both  over 
children  and  servants.  This  is  usually  supported 
by  the  state.  Economic  life  is  based  upon  the 
exploitation  of  human  labour  as  though  it  were  a 
commodity;  social  life  is  based  upon  the  exclusive- 
ness  of  a  dominant  caste  with  peculiar  and 
inconsistent  "  mysteries  "  of  its  own — and  this 
also  is  supported  by  the  majority  of  states.  The 
root  of  our  difficulty,  then,  in  reforming  the 
relation  of  states  is  the  psychological  or  moral  fact 
of  the  delight  in  domination;  for  no  class  or 

*  See,  for  example,  the  regulations  of  private  or  gentle- 
man's war  in  the  Coutumes  de  Beauvais. 


DEFENCE  79 


nation  or  organisation  is  without  a  trace  of  this. 
Domination  over  others  being  so  deeply  rooted 
as  a  guiding  conception  of  life,  it  is  not  to  be 
wondered  at  that  large  groups  of  men  aim  at 
domination,  one  against  the  other.  And  the  very 
perception  that  the  desire  to  dominate  is  every- 
where leads  many  to  despair  of  any  rearrangement 
of  inter-state  relations.  For  it  may  be  held  that 
the  evil  lies  deep  down;  and  that  until  there  is 
such  a  moral  transformation  as  is  at  present  un- 
thinkable, it  is  useless  to  think  of  reforming  the 
conduct  of  states. 

How,  then,  shall  we  deal  with  the  danger  to 
nationality  and  the  need  for  defence?  We 
cannot  wait  until  all  men  are  virtuous.  It 
is  no  argument  against  social  or  economic  re- 
form to  say  that  domestic  life  must  also  be 
changed.  And  the  proper  method  of  procedure 
is  probably  to  take  each  evil  separately :  for 
before  slavery  was  abolished,  some  believed  that 
it  could  not  be  eradicated  without  a  destruc 
tion  of  all  the  many  other  evils  with  which  it  was 
connected.  And  yet  it  was  found  possible  to  do 
away  at  least  with  the  legal  support  of  slave-own- 
ing. So  also  we  may  hope  that  although  the 
desire  to  dominate  cannot  be  destroyed  at  once,  in 
the  sphere  of  inter-state  action  something  may  be 
done  to  avert  its  most  disastrous  consequences. 
Let  us  then  consider  what  can  be  done  with  this 
all-absorbing  passion  in  the  restricted  sphere  of 
inter-state  politics. 


8o  THE  WORLD  OF  STATES 

We  accept  the  fact  that  the  desire  for  domina- 
tion over  others,  or  the  delight  in  conquest  which 
is  sometimes  called  the  love  of  "  glory/'  is  omni- 
present and  immensely  evil.  We  accept  also  the 
suggestion  that  the  hostilities  of  political  groups 
may  be  due  in  part  to  the  presence  of  this  desire 
for  domination.  We  may  also  allow  that  it  is 
impossible  to  cure  the  race  immediately  of  this 
trace  of  their  ancestry.  But  for  these  very 
reasons  we  may  consider  it  necessary  to  consider 
how  the  passion  for  domination  may  be  made  less 
destructive  than  it  is  at  present.  Lust  still  exists; 
but  the  organisation  of  society  has  done  something 
to  prevent  its  worst  effects.  Drunkenness  exists; 
but  Law  makes  it  less  offensive  to  those  who  are 
not  drunk.  Lying  and  cheating  exist  and  the  use 
of  them,  which  is  sometimes  called  "  business/5 
but  some  of  the  social  effects  of  these  are  less  evil 
than  they  might  be  if  there  were  no  law.  We 
have,  therefore,  now  to  consider  not  the  cure  of 
group-egoism  or  the  passion  for  domination,  but 
a  method  of  controlling  it,  leaving  to  others  the 
suggestion  of  methods  by  which  the  desire  for 
domination  itself  mayvbe  destroyed.  For  although 
it  is  an  external  and  purely  institutional  problem 
with  which  we  shall  deal  here  and  although  no  in 
stitutional  progress  is  secure  unless  there  is  educa- 
tion and  a  general  improvement  of  men's  ideals, 
nevertheless  a  new  institutional  or  administrative 
programme  often  transforms  the  whole  emotional 
and  intellectual  situation.  The  institutions  of  the 


DEFENCE  8 1 


United  States,  for  example,  do  almost  as  much  as 
the  efforts  of  educators  for  the  semi-civilised  emi- 
grant. And  so  men  coming  to  live  in  a  new  inter- 
state polity  might  be  changed  in  their  emotional 
outlook  with  respect  to  those  who  are  of  a  different 
nation.  The  reason  for  domestic  or  internal  poli- 
tical reform  of  institutions  is  that  it  may  be  a 
method  of  controlling  evil  passions.  We  do  not 
wait  till  men  are  virtuous  before  passing  a  law  that 
each  shall  have  only  one  wife.  It  may,  therefore, 
be  possible  to  regulate  inter-state  relations  in  spite 
of  the  desire  for  domination,  especially  as  this 
desire  is  fitful,  and  in  the  sphere  of  inter-state  life 
not  natural  or  inevitable,  but  usually  called  into 
being  by  the  cruder  and  more  savage  intelligences 
of  journalism. 

Defence,  then,  must  be  dealt  with  not  as  a  mili- 
tary but  as  a  political  problem :  it  is  a  problem  of 
organisation  and  not  of  accumulating  force.  For 
the  attempt  to  deal  with  it  by  purely  military 
methods  has  been  the  great  mistake  of  history,  and 
its  eternal  absurdity  is  enshrined  in  that  futile 
phrase :  "  If  you  want  peace,  prepare  for  war." 
It  is  because  the  governing  conceptions  of  inter- 
state relations  have  been  military  and  not  political 
that  no  progress  has  been  made. 

This  implies  that  there  are  two  methods  only  of 
discovering  which  shall  prevail  if  there  is  a  con- 
flict of  opinions  or  persons.  One  is  the  method  of 
force,  the  other  that  of  reason;  and,  as  Rousseau 
argued  in  the  Contrat  Social,  political  life  begins 


Sz  THE  WORLD  OF  STATES 

where  the  method  of  force  ends.  A  social  problem 
is  solved  politically  when  organisation  takes  the 
place  of  anarchy;  it  is  solved  by  military  action 
when  one  party  to  the  problem  is  put  out  of  exist- 
ence. Abstractly,  the  problem  of  "  defence  "  might 
be  solved  for  one  state  if  that  state  were  sufficiently 
powerful  to  destroy  all  others.  Then,  indeed,  the 
defence  of  that  state  would  have  been  secured. 
But,  practically,  this  has  been  found  an  impossible 
dream.  It  has  been  tried,  and  it  has  failed.  It  is 
now  time  to  attempt  a  political  solution  of  the  old 
problem,  and  it  is  easy  to  see  that  if  organisation 
took  the  place  of  anarchy  in  inter-state  relations, 
"  defence  "  might  be  secured  by  the  mere  abolition 
of  all  grounds  for  suspicion  and  hostility.  We  do 
not  pretend  that  this  solution  is  easy;  but  the 
history  of  the  failure  which  is  called  war  seems  to 
prove  that  it  is  at  least  worth  trying. 

That  it  is  reasonable  to  attempt  a  political 
solution  for  the  problem  of  defence  seems  also  to 
be  proved  by  the  fact  that  defence  is  generally 
supposed  to  he  a  means  for  attaining  security. 
Security,  ther,  is  the  end,  and  defence  the  means; 
for  the  professed  aim  even  of  the  most  glorious 
modern  war  is  peace,  and  it  seems  therefore  that, 
if  the  end  could  be  attained  by  other  means,  those 
who  would  otherwise  support  war  should  support 
this  other  means.  But  security  can  be  attained 
otherwise  than  by  defending  it;  it  is  best  attained 
by  eliminating  the  danger  before  we  have  to  face 
*t.  That  implies,  in  political  terms,  organisation; 


DEFENCE  83 


for  a  society  in  which  the  danger  did  not  exist 
would  not  be  inclined  to  spend  so  much  energy  in 
defences  against  it.  The  proper  purpose  of  inter- 
state politics,  therefore,  should  be  not  defence  but 
the  elimination  of  danger,  by  which  alone  security 
can  be  attained.* 

The  careful  reader  may  now  be  inclined  to 
object  that  this  is  not  the  problem  of  defence.  He 
may  urge  that  the  only  practical  problem  is  how  to 
preserve  such  law  and  order  as  we  value  from  the 
dastardly  attacks  or  sinister  machinations  of  other 
groups  of  men.  The  practical  man  in  every  state 
feels  genuinely  hurt  at  the  desire  for  domination 
in  every  other  state;  and  the  cynical  philosopher 
has  much  evidence  in  all  history  and  in  con- 
temporary life  to  prove  the  verbal  inspiration  of 
that  verse  of  Ecclesiasticus :  "  The  number  of 
fools  is  infinite."  It  is  comic  that  the  desire  for 
domination  should  be  so  easily  transformed  into 
the  policy  of  defence;  but  perhaps  the  majority 
take  as  evidence  for  what  other  states  intend  the 
policy  they  would  have  their  own  state  pursue. 
They  know  best  what  to  fear  from  others  by 
knowing  what  others  have  to  fear  from  them;  and, 

*  The  further  argument  that  the  military,  as  opposed  to 
the  political,  method  does  not  produce  its  professed  end, 
security,  has  often  been  used.  And  it  may  also  be  possible 
to  glance  at  the  incidental  effects  of  the  older  method,  even 
if  it  could  produce  security.  "  Tous  les  peuples  sont  menace's 
de  mourir  de  faim  pour  se  preparer  a  s'entretuer.  Avons- 
nous  le  droit  d'affirmer  que  nous  appartenons  a  une  age 
civilise"?  "  (Driault  et  Monod  :  Histoire  Politique). 

G2 


S4  THE  WORLD  OF  STATES 

indeed,  those  who  seriously  believe  that  only  men 
of  another  tongue  and  speech  are  moved  by  evil 
passions  are  precisely  those  who  would  discount 
any  attempts  to  cure  other  races  of  such  passions. 
They  desire  the  opportunity  for  defence.  They 
would  not  have  their  opponents  changed  from 
wolves  into  lambs,  for  they  actually  prefer  the 
danger  which  they  so  studiously  exaggerate.  They 
have  a  passion  for  fighting  someone,  although 
their  civilisation  has  progressed  far  enough  for 
them  to  persuade  themselves  that  they  would  only 
fight  on  the  defensive.  There  are  men  of  this 
kind  in  every  group.  They  are  unconsciously 
moved  by  the  very  desire  for  domination  which 
they  profess  to  hate,  for  passions  are  often  thus 
"  inverted."  The  ascetic  often  takes  a  delight  in 
the  pain  he  inflicts  upon  himself,  and  it  would  not 
be  a  false  paradox  to  say  that  St.  Simon  Stylites 
was  something  of  an  Epicurean.  He  really 
enjoyed  his  life  on  a  pillar.  And  so  men  delight 
in  fighting  for  defence,  thus  experiencing  the 
passion  for  domination  of  itself  in  an  inverted 
form. 

The  belief  as  to  other  people's  evil  intentions  is 
unfortunately  not  altogether  false.  It  would  be 
pleasant  to  argue  that  there  is  nothing  to  fear  and 
nothing  to  be  defended.  But  the  evidence  is 
against  such  an  argument.  There  is  much  to  be 
defended  from  the  desire  for  dominance;  much 
that  can  only  be  defended  by  physical  force,  so 
long  as  policy  is  based  upon  the  desire  for 


DEFENCE  85 


domination;  and  it  is  undeniable  that  the  policy 
of  some  states  at  least  is  based,  or  has  recently  been 
based,  upon  this  desire. 

It  is  possible  to  conceive  many  cases  in  which 
force  must  be  met  by  force  and  even  cunning  by 
cunning,  and  thus  there  may  be  for  many  years 
yet  an  organisation  of  armies  and  navies.  In  that 
sense  we  must  allow  that  the  actual  facts  of  human 
development  at  present  do  not  allow  for  complete 
disarmament  by  any  group,  and  so  long  as  there 
is  any  armament  it  seems  hardly  likely  that  the 
competition  in  armaments  can  be  avoided.  Not 
until  confidence  takes  the  place  of  mutual 
suspicion  will  it  be  possible  for  states  to  neglect 
altogether  the  possibility  that  force  may  be  used 
and  will  be  met  by  the  majority  of  its  own 
members  using  counter-force 

It  may  be  very  well  argued  that  there  are  other 
methods  of  counteracting  force  and  fraud  besides 
the  use  of  other  force.  And  some  may  believe, 
not  unreasonably,  that  other  methods  should  not 
be  so  completely  disregarded  as  they  are  until  they 
have  been  tried.  That  is  a  complex  and  a  funda- 
mentally moral  rather  than  a  purely  political  issue. 
In  the  political  sphere  force  and  fraud  appear  to 
be  the  only  methods  universally  admired  for  the 
defence  of  what  we  value;  and  we  must  restrict 
ourselves  to  the  political  issues.  The  difficulties 
of  the  present  situation  in  inter-state  politics  do 
not  arise  among  men  of  highly  cultivated  moral 
perceptions,  but  among  the  vast  numbers  who  do 


86  THE  WORLD  OF  STATES 

really  believe  that  wealth  is  better  than  happiness 
and  excitement  than  emotion.  And  it  would  be 
no  comfort  to  save  the  few  if  the  many  were  left 
to  destroy  one  another.  It  is  they  of  whom  we 
now  think.  At  the  risk  of  seeming  to  avoid  the 
larger  issue,  therefore,  our  chief  point  here  must 
be  that  the  real  political  problem  is  not  how  to 
defend  what  we  value,  but  how  to  prevent  its 
being  in  danger.  Even  those  who  disapprove  of  all 
war  must  perceive  that  war  is  used  as  a  substitute 
for  a  political  method  of  rearranging  the  relations 
between  growing  states.  It  is  impossible  therefore 
to  abolish  war  until  some  other  method  has  been 
generally  accepted,  and  the  first  need  is  to  conceive 
and  to  express  such  other  method  clearly  and 
persuasively.  The  problem  of  war  is  not  so  simple 
as  the  problem  whether  in  the  abstract  one  ought 
to  fight  or  not.  War  is  an  institution,  not  merely 
a  bad  habit,  and  men  even  of  a  simple  turn  of  mind 
are  beginning  to  see  that.  But  if  we  solve  the 
problem  of  the  danger,  we  shall  find  that  there  is 
no  problem  of  defence  at  all.  For  our  situation  at 
present  is  like  that  of  men  on  the  edge  of  a 
crumbling  cliff.  There  is  a  danger  that  the  whole 
of  civilisation  or,  if  you  will,  the  state  to  which  we 
belong  may  go  toppling  down.  The  problem  of 
defence  needs  solving  after  the  manner  of  the 
problem  of  life  on  the  cliff-edge.  We  may  wall 
in  the  edge;  we  may  prop  up  the  cliff;  we  may 
prevent  too  many  people  standing  there  at  once. 
But  the  problem  itself  disappears  if  we  come  down 


DEFENCE  87 


from  the  dangerous  eminence  and  live  in  the 
valleys.  Remove  yourself  from  the  danger,  and 
you  will  not  have  such  need  to  defend  yourself 
from  it. 

In  the  political  sphere  the  life  in  the  valleys  is 
the  organisation  of  states.  If  there  were  some 
method  of  deciding  according  to  accepted  prin- 
ciples the  possible  disputes  between  states,  there 
would  be  no  need  for  defence;  and,  still  further, 
if  there  were  any  organisation  by  which  states 
could  act  continuously  together  for  common 
interests  there  would  be  less  danger  of  one  state 
seeking  to  dominate.  The  passion  might  still  be 
there,  but  it  would  not  have  control  of  the  state, 
for  each  state  would  more  and  more  incline  to 
regard  other  states  as  essential  parts  of  a  vaster 
whole.  The  world  is  not  angelic  yet,  but  men  are 
beginning  to  find  excuses  for  the  passions  they 
have  inherited,  and  that  seems  to  show  that  they 
begin  to  be  ashamed  of  them.  The  usual  cry  is 
now  that  "  legitimate  development  "  leads  a  nation 
to  "  expand  ";  and,  if  any  organisation  existed  by 
which  changes  could  take  place  in  the  adjustment 
of  inter-state  interests,  there  would  be  less  inclina- 
tion to  fly  to  a  method  which  is  really  revolu- 
tionary. For  to  defend  your  legitimate  expansion 
by  force  is  like  claiming  your  wages  by  picking 
a  pocket.  The  danger  would  not  at  once  disappear, 
since  discontent  might  always  release  old  passions; 
but  it  is  obvious  that  the  danger  would  be  lessened 
and  the  desire  for  dominance  in  every  nation 


THE  WORLD  OF    STATES 


would  be  controlled  by  giving  a  political  outlet  for 
national  ambitions.  What  that  organisation  may 
be  we  have  not  yet  considered,  and  perhaps  it  will 
be  thought  too  difficult  a  task  to  establish  an  inter- 
state polity  at  once.  Our  main  contention,  how- 
ever, stands  thus  :  whether  the  solution  is  difficult 
or  easy,  it  is  political  and  not  military.  The  true 
defensive  is  organisation.  Attack  is  no  defence; 
the  preparation  for  attack  gives  no  security.  The 
only  practicable  security  is  to  be  found  in  such  an 
arrangement  of  inter-state  relations  as  will  give 
less  opportunity  to  the  passions  we  have  inherited 
from  primitve  tribes  and  more  opportunity  for 
political  adjustment  of  the  claims  of  various 
groups. 


CHAPTER  VI:  CO-OPERATION 
BETWEEN  STATES 

IF  we  suppose  that  all  the  reasons  for  isolating 
states  and  continuing  hostility  between  them 
are  somehow  overcome,  it  may  be  still  held 
that  the  organisation  of  inter-state  relations  is  too 
difficult  to  establish,  and,  if  established,  may  be 
easily  disregarded  by  any  recalcitrant  or  primitive 
group.  For  many  argue  as  though  a  gradual 
education  of  peoples  in  separate  states  is  more 
possible  than  the  construction  of  any  inter-state 
system;  and  it  may  be  thought  that  the  establish- 
ment of  organisation  is  useless  if  nations  are 
primitive  and  unnecessary  if  nations  are  educated. 
There  could  then,  on  this  hypothesis,  be  agreement 
between  states  without  any  organisation  of  the 
relations  between  them. 

Against  this  view  we  should  argue  that 
organisation  affects  the  mental  attitude  even  of 
the  primitive;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  it  makes 
the  activities  of  the  intelligent  more  possible.  If 
there  were  any  inter-state  organisation  men  would 
become  familiar  with  the  idea  of  co-operation 
between  states,  and  the  intelligent  would  be  more 
powerful.  Our  purpose,  then,  must  be  to  show 
that  such  organisation  is  so  far  a  natural  develop- 
ment that  its  establishment  becomes  more  easy 
every  year;  and,  secondly,  that  some  inter-state 
organisation  is  necessary.  These  are  two  quite 
distinct  points;  for,  although  there  is  a  tendency 
towards  inter-state  organisation  in  the  present 
social  world,  that  tendency  may  be  resisted,  and, 


90  THE  WORLD  OF  STATES 


on  the  other  hand,  the  tendency,  even  if  it  is  not 
resisted,  is  vague  and  slow,  unless  a  conviction  that 
inter-state  organisation  is  necessary  causes  men  to 
support  it. 

The  present  organisation  of  inter-state  relations 
is  elaborate.*  Almost  in  the  dark,  and  certainly 
without  the  conscious  co-operation  of  the  majority 
of  men,  the  normal  relation  of  states  has  been 
transformed  within  the  last  generation.  The 
process  has  been  gradual,  and  its  importance  has 
not  long  been  recognised.  The  earlier  efforts  at 
political  organisation  were  each  isolated,  for  every 
state  began,  as  we  have  already  shown,  in  a  natural 
isolation!  or  in  that  artificial  isolation  which  is 
caused  by  hostility  to  neighbours.  Like  a  new- 
born child,  the  early  political  organism  is  chiefly 
employed  in  internal  struggles.  It  must  discover 
its  own  structure  and  gain  control  of  that  before 
it  becomes  interested  in  action  in  an  outside  world. 
And  the  time  comes  when  the  simple  political 

*  See  the  Annuaire  de  la  Vie  Internationale,  1910-1911, 
Brussels.  The  increase  of  international  life  may  be  marked 
by  the  fact  that  in  1909  there  were  300  international  organi- 
sations and  in  1912  there  were  510.  International  congresses 
and  conferences  (public  and  private)  increased  as  follows  : 
From  1840-1849,  there  were  9;  from  1870-1879,  there  were 
169 ;  from  1890-1899,  there  were  510 ;  from  1900-1909,  there 
were  1,070 ;  from  1910-1913,  there  were  475. 

t  This  refers  to  the  most  primitive  political  organisation 
within  "  marches/'  later  transformed  into  frontiers,  cf. 
Stubb's  Lectures  on  Early  English  History.  The  isolation 
of  states  is  well  rendered,  in  a  summary  way,  by  Fairgreave, 
Georgraphy  and  World  Power. 


CO-OPERATION  BETWEEN  STATES  91 

organism  is  aware  of  contact  with  others  of  the 
same  kind.  The  likeness  between  an  organism 
and  a  state  may  be  exaggerated,  but  we  may 
reasonably  suppose  that  the  parts  of  a  state  would 
not  function  as  they  do  if  only  one  state  were  in 
existence.  For  government  is  always  concerned 
with  the  existence  of  other  states;  and,  although 
in  earlier  times  foreign  policy  meant  only  an 
occasional  embassy  or  a  war,  for  some  hundred 
years  no  state  has  at  any  moment  been  able  to 
neglect  the  existence  of  others.  And  this  has 
affected  our  view  of  history  as  an  explanation  of 
present  life. 

To  take  English  history  as  an  example,  for 
many  years  such  history  isolated  the  record  of 
the  inhabitants  of  England.  The  wicked 
foreigners  who  were  occasionally  mentioned  were 
our  "  enemies,"  and  even  as  such  our  contact  with 
them  was  regarded  as  a  recurrence  of  episodes 
rather  than  a  continuous  influence.  The  historian 
thought  within  frontiers — beyond  his  England 
was  an  unmapped  and  unregarded  wilderness. 
Then  two  discoveries  were  made.  The  "  Empire  " 
was  seen  to  be  an  integral  part  of  England,  and 
the  history  even  of  this  larger  whole  was  seen  to 
be  part  of  a  still  larger  development.  The  history 
of  England  was  first  seen  to  be  essentially  a  record 
of  acts  and  ideas  in  action  in  distant  India  or  New 
Zealand;  for  we  could  not  understand  the  changes 
in  English  life  without  direct  study  of  adventure 
and  administration  among  alien  peoples  or  in 


92  THE  WORLD  OF  STATES 

newly  discovered  lands.  And,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  life  and  thought  of  England  were  seen  to  be 
unintelligible  without  a  study  of  the  organisations 
and  revolts  of  continental  Europe.  The  average 
man  was  not  quickly  affected  by  the  new  under- 
standing of  history.  But  most  men  are  now  aware 
that  there  is  no  isolated  nation  or  state. 

The  inhabitants  of  every  state  have  been  think- 
ing for  generations  within  a  frontier.  Their 
records  are  filled  with  the  results  of  this  frontier- 
vision  :  and  later  historians  have  not  proved  that 
they  can  overcome  the  limitations  of  view  which 
they  found  in  their  authorities  or  sources.  It  is 
natural,  indeed,  that  the  history  of  our  group 
should  be  the  most  interesting  to  us,  just  as  the 
history  of  a  great  family  is  most  interesting  to 
those  who  belong  to  it.  But  a  less  limited  view 
of  what  our  group  has  stood  for  in  the  world 
would  exalt  and  not  degrade  our  patriotism. 
There  are  an  increasing  number  of  men  and 
women  who  think  it  more  excellent  to  teach 
foreigners  than  to  cc  beat  "  them.  It  begins  to  be 
believed  that  to  cure  the  East  of  cholera  would  be 
a  more  admirable  act  than  to  conquer  it;  and  men 
will  soon  feel  even  in  the  purely  political  sphere 
that  the  relations  of  states  cannot  be  adequately 
described,  as  Hobbes  described  them,  in  the 
metaphors  of  gladiatorial  combat.  Therefore  all 
civilised  men  are  beginning  to  perceive  that  human 
history  is  one  whole,  of  which  the  history  of  their 
group  is  only  a  part;  and  also  it  is  perceived  that 


CO-OPERATION  BETWEEN  STATES  93 

the  history  of  that  part  is  unintelligible  if  its  rela- 
tions to  the  whole  are  conceived  as  those  of 
combat. 

But  we  are  not  chiefly  concerned  here  with  the 
attitude  we  are  to  adopt  to  national  history.  The 
important  fact  to  recognise  is  that  the  human  race 
is  so  changed  that  it  is  literally  impossible  to  write 
recent  history  without  continuous  reference  to 
members  of  other  groups  than  our  own.*  This 
is  not  simply  to  imagine  as  fact  what  we  desire  to 
exist :  for  even  the  most  nationalistic  historian  of 
modern  times  is  concerned  with  the  continuous 
contact  of  states.  He  cannot  explain  his  own 
present  situation  if  he  avoids  mention  of  the 
development  and  purposes  of  other  states  than  his 
own. 

We  do  not  imagine  that  the  states  of  the  world 
are  a  happy  family  because  they  are  in  contact. 
They  cannot  keep  out  of  each  other's  way,  but  they 
quarrel  like  cliff-dwellers;  and  this  no  fantastic 
idealism  can  disguise.  In  modern  times  the  hos- 
tility of  states  is  indeed  obvious :  but  the  less 
obvious  fact  of  their  increasing  interdependence 
may  be  more  important.  For  trade  and  investment 
frequently  disregard  frontiers :  and  foreign  ideas 
permeate  even  through  national  prejudice.  The 

*  Even  the  nature  of  a  frontier  has  changed,  but  this  is 
not  yet  perceived  by  those  who  concern  themselves  chiefly 
with  the  rearrangement  of  frontiers.  A  treatise  could  be 
written  in  political  theory  on  the  transformation  of  the 
nature  of  administrative  limits. 


94  THE  WORLD  OF  STATES 

most  interesting  fact,  however,  is  that  the  states 
themselves  have  begun  to  act  together  in  the  con- 
trol of  disease,  the  support  of  postal  communica- 
tion, the  policing  and  charting  of  the  seas,  the 
treatment  of  crime,  and  in  many  other  ways. 
Governments,  if  they  are  not  continually  reminded 
of  their  sacred  sovereignty,  tend  to  act  as  though 
it  mattered  very  little;  and  the  history  of  foreign 
policy  since  the  Renaissance  has  been  an  amusing 
record  for  anyone  who  is  interested  in  the  psycho- 
logy of  those  who  have  political  control  of  other 
men.  There  has  been  an  increasing  communica- 
tion, which  continually  approaches  friendliness, 
until  a  sudden  memory  of  ancient  dignities  or 
"  vital  interests "  makes  the  diplomatists  jerk 
themselves  apart  into  an  attitude  of  mutual  sus- 
picion. And  the  inconsistencies  of  foreign  policy 
are  not  wholly  irrational :  for  they  reflect  the  two 
facts  that  states  are  in  part  being  brought  closer 
and  in  part  are  increasingly  rivals.  Like  a  family 
which  is  forced  to  go  into  a  smaller  house,  they  are 
always  meeting  and  generally  quarrelling.  But  by 
the  mere  force  of  circumstances  governments  have 
been  compelled  to  devise  diplomacy  for  informing 
themselves  about  other  governments :  and  they 
have  found  that  it  actually  pays  to  assist  their 
citizens  to  communicate  by  post  with  foreigners. 
No  great  amount  of  goodwill  is  implied  in  diplo- 
macy or  the  postal  system;  but  a  very  bad- 
tempered  family  has  been  compelled  to  devise 
some  method  of  organising  their  relations.  Any 


CO-OPERATION  BETWEEN  STATES  95 

review  of  recent  history,  therefore,  will  show  that 
there  is  a  tendency  which  brings  states  closer 
together  and  that  such  a  tendency  creates  a  form 
of  organisation  between  them.  Diplomacy  and  the 
Postal  Service  may  stand  for  the  beginnings  of  an 
inter-state  political  system.* 

In  addition  to  these,  we  must  count  treaties  as 
examples  of  inter-state  organisation.!  A  treaty  in 
International  Law  is  a  specific  agreement  in  view 
of  certain  difficulties,  binding  either  for  a  specified 
time  or  indefinitely.  The  two  or  more  parties  to 
a  treaty  are  obviously,  so  long  as  the  treaty  is  kept, 
in  a  special  political  relation  and  their  actions  are 
equally  bound  by  obedience  to  the  terms  of  the 
treaty.  Some  treaties  are  agreements  at  the  conclu- 
sion of  wars  :  and  all  wars  which  do  not  end  with 
the  extinction  of  one  of  the  contending  parties  end 
with  treaties.  The  relations  of  Great  Britain  and 
the  United  States  with  respect  to  the  Canadian 
frontier  have  now  been  administered  for  a  hundred 
years  in  accordance  with  the  agreement  made  in 


*  Action  in  common  between  states  is  made  continuous 
by  the  establishment  of  an  administrative  organisation,  as, 
for  example,  the  International  Office  for  Public  Hygiene 
(established  1908),  which  is  in  Paris,  and  is  supported  by 
twenty-eight  states.  Scientific  research  is  also  supported  by 
states  acting  i>n  common.  It  is  obvious  that  the  measure- 
ment of  the  earth,  or  seismological  knowledge,  could  not  be 
achieved  by  one  state  acting  alone. 

t  Cf.  Martens'  Recueil  Gtndral  de  Trails.  This  gives 
nearly  900  treaties  between  1874  and  1883. 


96  THE  WORLD  OF  STATES 

1814.*  And  this  is  inter-state  organisation.  So 
also  Prussia  and  Austria  are  still  affected  by  the 
treaty  of  1866.  Other  treaties,  although  not  aris- 
ing out  of  wars,  are  brought  into  being  to  settle 
some  dispute.  Such  are  treaties  which  deal  with 
boundaries,  or  the  policing  of  certain  countries  or 
certain  parts  of  the  sea. 

But  in  modern  times  treaties  have  been  arranged 
without  any  preliminary  quarrel  and  merely  for 
the  arrangement  of  relations  between  citizens  of 
the  treaty-making  states.  The  greater  number  of 
these  are  commercial  treaties.  They  are  statements 
of  the  way  in  which  two  or  more  governments  will 
act  in  view  of  certain  relations  entered  into  by 
their  nationals  in  trading  one  with  the  other.  They 
are  the  next  step  forward  in  inter-state  organisa- 
tion, after  diplomacy  and  the  consular  service. 

In  International  Law  some  place  is  also  given  to 
the  agreements  as  to  the  limitations  of  the  use  of 
force  and  fraud  in  war.  The  Geneva  Convention, 
for  example,  emphasised  by  the  Hague  Confer- 
ence, sets  out  a  rule  for  the  conduct  of  civilised 
states,  and  most  states  act  in  the  main  according  tc 
these  rules.  But  this  is  inter-state  organisation : 

*  One  of  the  most  interesting  books  on  inter-state  politics 
is  W.  A.  Dunning's  The  British  Empire  and  the  United 
States,  1914.  It  deals  with  a  hundred  years  of  peace  between 
the  two  states.  There  is  no  reason  why  such  a  book  should 
not  be  composed,  to  treat  the  development  of  amity  between 
other  states.  Sir  Thomas  Barclay's  Thirty  Years  deals 
with  the  beginnings  of  the  Entente  Cordiale. 


CO-OPERATION  BETWEEN  STATES  97 

for  if  separate  bodies  act  upon  the  same  principles 
a  form  of  polity  is  beginning. 

There  are  also  undefined  agreements  between 
governments  which,  in  fact,  result  in  co-operation 
as  to  certain  issues.  The  Entente  between  Great 
Britain  and  France  was,  until  1914,  an  agreement 
of  this  kind,  and  we  may,  perhaps,  allow  that  there 
are  sympathies  between  governments  which, 
although  they  hardly  bind  all  citizens,  do  lead 
towards  some  common  action.  Some  of  the  South 
American  states  are  thus  connected,  and  perhaps 
also  the  three  Scandinavian  states.*  In  this  we 
have  no  inter-state  administration;  but  a  common 
political  attitude  in  a  group  of  states  is  the  begin- 
ning of  an  inter-state  polity. 

Finally,  there  are  alliances.  These  are,  in  fact, 
restrictions  of  sovereignty,  for  allied  states  are 
bound  to  act  together  and  to  accept  common 
decisions.  The  apparatus  for  arriving  at  such 
decisions  is  crude,  and  the  common  action  is  not 
generally  of  a  very  complex  kind,  but  it  implies 
inter-state  organisation.  In  times  of  war  inter- 
state administration,  based  upon  alliance,  easily 
comes  into  being.  In  the  war  since  1914  there 
have  grown  up  in  both  groups  of  belligerents 
offices  for  communication  and  for  action  upon 
common  plans,  as,  for  example,  the  Z.E.G.  in 
Germany  and  Austria.  And  even  in  times  of  peace 
an  alliance  generally  implies  some  special  relation 
between  foreign  offices,  almost  amounting  to 

*  This  has  begun  in  the  Scandinavian  Monetary  Union. 


98  THE  WORLD  OF  STATES 

organisation.  Put,  therefore,  at  its  lowest,  alliance 
is  a  form  of  inter-state  polity :  and  it  is  evident 
that  alliances  tend  to  increase,  since  every  state, 
even  the  most  powerful,  finds  it  difficult  to  stand 
alone. 

It  is  obvious  from  all  of  these  facts  that  inter- 
state organisation  has  begun.  Such  organisation 
as  at  present  exists  may,  indeed,  be  insecure :  it 
may  be  in  part  pernicious  or  obstructive  to  pro- 
gress; it  may  give  too  much  power  to  administra- 
tors over  citizens,  or  it  may  diminish  the  control 
of  citizens  over  their  governing  classes.  Much 
may  be  said  against  it.  But,  on  the  other  hand, 
every  agreement,  even  for  a  few  years,  implies  the 
spread  of  orderliness  in  the  relations  between  men, 
for  it  is  the  register  of  some  vague  tendency 
towards  a  less  provincial  view  of  justice  and 
liberty;  and  it  is  actually  depended  upon  by  the 
contracting  states  in  their  relation  one  to  another. 
The  majority  of  treaties  are  not  broken,  and  most 
alliances  last  until  their  purpose  has  been 
achieved.  It  is  mere  fanaticism  to  neglect  all  this 
and  to  fly  into  the  wilds  of  emotionalism  as  to  the 
beauties  of  peace  or  the  glories  of  war.  What  is 
needed  is  a  critical  consideration  of  the  situation 
and  an  endeavour  to  control  it. 

We  have  seen,  then,  that  organisation  is  be- 
ginning in  the  relation  between  states.  The 
tendency  may,  however,  be  resisted  or  insuffi- 
ciently supported,  and  we  must,  therefore,  now 
argue  that  the  increase  of  such  organisation  is 


CO-OPERATION  BETWEEN  STATES  99 

necessary  and  excellent.  The  ultimate  reasons 
for  this  are  to  be  found  in  new  conceptions  of  the 
nature  of  the  state;  but  this  more  abstract  issue 
we  shall  omit  for  the  present  and  confine  our 
attention  to  the  actual  needs  of  definite  states. 
Again,  we  must  omit  for  the  present  the  general 
problem  of  organisation  between  all  the  states  of 
the  world  and  speak  only  of  the  necessary  rela- 
tions between  two  or  three  states.  For  it  is  in 
such  small  beginnings  that  we  may  most  clearly 
perceive  the  use  of  inter-state  organisation. 

At  present  the  relations  between  men  within 
one  state  are  regulated  by  established  principles 
of  law,  which  are  carried  out  by  administrative 
officials.  Contracts  are  enforced  on  certain  con- 
ditions, violence  is  repressed,  fraud  is  punished, 
and  the  land  and  waterways  are  policed.  But 
the  relations  between  men  who  belong  to  dif- 
ferent states  are  not  so  regulated,  and  when  any 
friction  occurs,  the  state,  through  diplomacy, 
must  argue  and  arrange  separately  on  each  sepa- 
rate case  or  the  issue  must  be  left  undecided, 
with  the  consequent  unsettlement  of  credit  or 
uncertainty  of  temper  between  groups  of  men 
in  the  two  states.  So  long  as  contracts  are  few 
between  men  of  different  states,  cases  can  be  dealt 
with  singly  and  without  the  adoption  of  any 
general  rule.  But  it  is  obviously  foolish  when 
similar  cases  are  frequent  that  no  general  rule 
should  be  adopted.  This  is  no  problem  of  ab- 
stract sovereignty  or  of  divided  allegiance,  but 

H  2 


THE  WORLD  OF  STATES 


simply  one  of  putting  in  order  the  new  com- 
plexities of  trade,  investment,  and  even  travel. 

It  seems  reasonable  therefore  to  support  the 
signing  of  commercial  treaties  between  states  the 
iitizens  of  which  normally  trade  together :  and 
perhaps  there  might  be  an  increase  in  common 
contract  laws,  or  marriage  laws  or  travel  regula- 
tions. This  may  be  applied  to  groups  of  states. 
For  example,  a  common  contract  law  and  marriage 
law  might  be  administered  in  the  United  States 
and  the  British  Empire.  The  Scandinavian  states 
might  have  a  common  control  of  their  commerce. 
France,  Italy  and  Spain  might  administer  in  com- 
mon the  situation  in  North- West  Africa.  And  the 
advantage  gained  in  each  case  would  be  such  as 
comes  from  a  common  administration  established 
over  a  large  area. 

Secondly,  states  vary  in  their  organisation : 
some  are  tending  in  a  democratic  direction.  That 
is  to  say,  in  a  few  states  a  greater  number  of  citizens 
are  being  given  political  power  and  responsi- 
bility; and  there  has  been  during  the  last  century 
a  general  departure  from  autocracy.  The  influence 
of  democratic  ideas  has  spread  from  one  state  to 
another  and  a  certain  sympathy  has  existed 
between  liberalising  political  parties  in  the  different 
states.  This  was  a  continuance  of  the  old  develop- 
ment of  the  state  in  isolation :  for  the  democratic 
tendencies  were  generally  combined  with  an  unpo- 
litical neglect  of  foreign  policy  and  their  spread 
from  state  to  state  was  not  assisted  by  any  political 
action. 


CO-OPERATION  BETWEEN  STATES 


Meanwhile,  alliance  has  always  been  recognised 
as  a  method  of  strengthening  the  established 
government  in  allied  states;  and  autocracies,  before 
even  the  Holy  Alliance  was  conceived,  have 
used  alliance  as  a  primitive  method  of  inter-state 
organisation,  generally  with  military  purposes.  But 
alliance,  because  of  its  sinister  connections  in  past 
history,  has  not  been  willingly  adopted  as  a  policy 
by  democratic  states,  and  these  have  only  been 
driven  to  it  when  military  designs  were  in  control 
of  inter-state  policy.  We  have  thus  the  apparent 
division  between  democratic  tendencies  without 
any  inter-state  policy  and  alliance  combined  with 
autocracy  and  militarism.  We  must  make  the  next 
step  and  combine  internal  democracy  with  a  new 
form  of  alliance.  For  progressive  governments 
should  aim  at  the  permanent  organisation  of  their 
relations  with  other  like  governments.  The 
influence  of  democratic  ideals  would  not  then  be 
left  to  the  chance  of  literary  or  oratorical  propa- 
ganda. Sympathy  would  be  made  stronger  by 
organisation.  The  security  which  is  necessary  for 
the  progress  of  internal  reform  would  be  more 
generally  established.  And  instead  of  forming  a 
mere  military  alliance  the  states  of  a  new  inter-state 
polity  would  lead  the  human  race  to  more  varied 
life  and  more  equally  shared  progress.* 

*  A  wider  thesis  might  be  made  that  there  is,  as  yet,  no 
clearly  conceived  foreign  policy  corresponding  to  the  demo- 
cratic government  in  internal  policy.  All  foreign  policy 
seem  to  be  an  inheritance  from  dynastic  or  oligarchic  govern- 
ment, but  a  new  system  might  be  thought  out. 


THE  WORLD  OF  STATES 


Again,  the  time  has  come  when  progressive 
states  should  develop  towards  the  next  stage  in 
political  organisation.  No  sane  person  imagines 
that  the  present  state-system  is  the  final  political 
device  which  humanity  can  contrive.  Clearly,  the 
day  of  the  segregate  state  is  over.  But  the  ancient 
alternative,  alliance,  is  politically  primitive,  for  it 
has  a  definite  connection  with  war  and  must 
invariably  be  interpreted  by  those  outside  it  as  a 
combination  of  military  powers.  We  need  not 
rest,  however,  in  the  alternatives  of  isolation  or 
alliance.  The  third  possibility  is  permanent  inter- 
state political  organisation  for  the  progress  of 
trade  and  investment,  the  control  of  disease  and 
crime;  and  this  need  not  begin  by  being  world- 
wide in  its  membership  or  too  far-reaching  in  the 
powers  given  to  inter-state  officials. 

If  even  two  states  began  to  act  together  in  this 
way  a  new  future  would  be  open.  And  it  is  natural 
to  imagine  that  the  British  Empire  and  the  United 
States  of  America  might  make  together  this  great 
experiment.  Each  of  these  contains  more  varied 
races  within  its  frontiers  than  any  other  state : 
each  is  politically  developed  upon  the  same  general 
lines,  and  in  each  strong  groups  have  arisen  with 
a  new  view  of  diplomacy  or  inter-state  policy  not 
confined  to  the  trivial  lying  and  braggart  threats 
of  the  Renaissance  school.  And  besides  political 
likenesses,  there  is  a  social  sympathy  between  great 
bodies  of  citizens  in  the  two  states.  Should  they 
not  therefore  be  the  first  to  form  an  inter-state 


CO-OPERATION  BETWEEN  STATES  103 

polity?  They  have  begun  to  move  along  that 
road  in  the  first  treaty  of  Arbitration  which  they 
signed  in  1914 :  and  it  requires  but  little  more  to 
make  all  the  relations  between  the  British  Empire 
and  the  United  States  permanently  political. 

What  we  are  suggesting  is  an  inter-state  polity, 
combining  two  or  three  states.  World  organisation 
may  be  aimed  at  as  well;  but  this  larger  and 
simpler,  and  also  more  insecure,  political  system 
would  not  be  made  less  worth  having  if  states  were 
grouped  into  polities.  Such  a  polity  would  be 
something  more  than  an  alliance  and  less  than  a 
single  federal  state.  Its  administrative  and  legisla- 
tive machinery  might  be  of  the  smallest,  and  its 
development  would  have  to  depend  upon  the  more 
or  less  of  common  interest  which  attracted  the 
combined  states  each  to  the  other.  There  is  no 
reason  why  one  state  should  not  belong  to  two  or 
more  such  polities.  For  example,  France  would 
belong  to  a  Mediterranean  polity  and  also  to  a 
Central  European  or  Northern  polity.  The 
United  States  would  belong  to  an  Atlantic  polity 
and  also  to  an  Eastern  polity.  Thus,  as  in  muni- 
cipal organisation,  there  would  be  a  complex  of 
inter-related  organisations. 

This  is  intentionally  fantastic  in  detail,  but  it  is 
not  far  removed  from  the  practical  in  its  chief 
conceptions.  For  the  argument  seems  to  hold  good 
that  the  separate  states  would  gain  by  partial  com- 
binations for  distinct  purposes  and  that  the 
resulting  organisations  should  be  many  and  com- 


104  THE  WORLD  OF  STATES 

plex.  It  is  strange  that  practical  men,  who  know 
how  elaborate  is  the  organisation  of  municipal  life, 
should,  when  they  think  of  inter-state  polity,  have 
no  possibilities  in  their  minds  but  separate  states  in 
Council  or  a  much  too  simple  World-State.  The 
best  practical  policy  seems  to  be  to  discover  how 
two  or  three  states  could  be  combined  in  a  polity 
for  special  purposes. 

Clearly,  advance  must  be  made  at  once  in 
arranging  and  organising  the  relation  between 
states.  For  we  cannot  afford  to  wait  until  internal 
oppression  has  ceased  before  we  attack  some  of 
the  evils  of  inter-state  anarchy;  and,  again,  it  is 
this  very  anarchy  between  states,  with  its  recurrent 
crises,  which  makes  it  almost  impossible  to  reform 
any  state  from  within.  Our  final  argument,  there  • 
fore,  for  organised  co-operation  between  states  is 
this :  organised  co-operation  alone  will  provide 
the  atmosphere  and  the  conditions  necessary  for 
realising  that  liberty  for  individuals  and  order  in 
their  relations  for  which  the  good  state  exists.  A 
large  assumption  is  here  implied;  and  we  cannot 
explain  it  here.  We  are  assuming,  in  fact,  that  a 
state  is  better  in  proportion  to  the  ability  of  its 
citizens  consciously  and  with  moral  responsibility 
to  share  in  its  policy  and  administration.  This 
is  often  called  the  ideal  of  democracy;  and  this  we 
must  simply  take  for  granted  here.  But  if  this  be 
granted,  it  follows  that  states  must  adopt  organised 
co-operation,  since  rivalry  between  them  inevita- 
bly causes  and  develops  a  military  aristocratic  type 


CO-OPERATION  BETWEEN  STATES  105 

of  organisation  and  destroys  equality  of  choice, 
equality  of  judgment,  and  equality  of  moral 
responsibility.  However  large  and  powerful  a 
state  may  be,  if  its  external  relations  are  not 
organised  it  must  prepare  for  the  ultimate  results 
of  anarchy, — fraud  and  violence.  It  seems,  there- 
fore, that  every  citizen  with  a  democratic  ideal 
should  work  directly  for  organising  the  relation 
between  states,  and  aim  at  promoting  not  simply 
good  will  or  friendliness  between  peoples,  but 
legal  and  administrative  systems  to  connect  states. 
Not  simply  international  sentiment  is  necessary 
for  democratic  development,  but  a  clearly  con- 
ceived and  resolutely  established  inter-state  polity. 


CHAPTER   VIL    INTERNATIONAL 
AUTHORITY  AND  LEAGUES. 

IT  may  now  be  asked  if  there  is  any  reasonable 
and  practicable  method  by  which  to  organise 
co-operation  between  states  in  the  larger 
political  issues.  We  need  not  consider  such  far-off 
ideals,  at  present,  as  a  complete  political  organisa- 
tion for  the  whole  of  humanity.  It  is  enough  if 
any  definite  and  practical  suggestion  can  be  made 
for  the  next  step  in  political  progress;  for  the 
world  will  probably  not  end  to-morrow,  and  we 
have  a  long  way  to  go.  There  is  time  and  oppor- 
tunity to  secure  our  position  gradually  and  thus 
to  approach,  with  less  danger  of  destructive  reac- 
tion, the  better  ordering  of  life.  On  the  other 
hand,  there  is  no  time  like  the  present  for  making 
the  first  step  in  the  right  direction.  It  is  never  too 
early  to  control  present  tendencies  with  a  view  to 
creating  a  better  future;  and  there  is  no  telling  how 
important  it  may  be  to  make  a  beginning,  even 
though  it  may  imply  only  a  very  small  improve- 
ment on  the  present  situation. 

The  various  suggestions  for  controlling  the 
desire  for  domination,  the  rivalry  of  trade  and  the 
opposition  of  nations  may  be  reduced  to  two. 
We  must  both  develop  such  International 
organisation  as  was  beginning  at  the  Hague  Con- 
ferences, and  we  must  have  a  League  of  Nations. 
The  practical  difference  is  that  in  developing  the 
Hague  Conferences  we  have  all  the  sovereign 
states  of  the  world  represented ;  while  in  a  League, 
at  least  at  first,  not  all  would  be  members.  Another 
important  difference  is  that  the  Hague  Conference 


INTERNATIONAL  AUTHORITY  AND  LEAGUES         107 

plan  is  due  to  a  slow  development  and  to  sugges- 
tions in  time  of  peace;  but  the  conception  of  a 
League  of  Nations  arose  since  1914  and  in 
reference  to  a  great  war. 

The  development  of  the  Hague  Conferences 
appears  to  be  at  first  sight  the  most  practical  plan 
for  co-operation  between  states,  since  we  have 
already  become  accustomed  to  the  existence  of 
such  Conferences.*  That  is  an  advantage;  although 
the  effect  of  past  conferences  upon  the  destructive 
forces  in  political  life  has  not  proved  to  be  very 
great.  We  must,  however,  recognise  that  the 
succession  of  conferences  which  has  so  far  occurred 
is  a  result  of  long  and  painful  experiment.  Good 
or  bad  or  simply  ineffective,  the  international 
discussions  at  the  Hague  marked  a  definite 
achievement  in  political  life. 

In  this  respect  it  is  most  important  that  we 
should  feel  ourselves  to  be  part  of  the  general 
current  of  history.  What  we  do  and  think  and 
feel  now,  even  in  political  issues,  is  in  part  the 
effect  of  what  has  occurred  in  the  past.  And  the 
past  contains  not  only  continual  conflicts  between 
groups,  but  continual  efforts  to  avoid  such  con- 
flicts. These  efforts  are  in  our  blood  just  as  much 
as  are  the  primitive  appetites  for  adventure  and 
violence;  and  historians  have  neglected  to  record 
them  only  because  until  a  movement  is  successful 
the  average  historian  does  not  think  it  important. 

*  The    Hague    Peace    Conference.       A.    Pearoe    Higgins 
(1909). 


io8  THE  WORLD  OF  STATES 

When  political  organisation  between  states  has 
been  already  in  existence  for  some  years,  historians 
will  easily  discover  that  there  have  been  important 
forecastings  of  it  in  the  earliest  times.  And 
although  it  is  premature  now  to  write  a  history  of 
such  beginnings,  it  may  be  as  well  to  indicate  that 
the  conception  of  international  organisation  is  not 
new. 

At  the  beginning  of  political  development  is  the 
Greek  polls.  Before  the  polls  was  established, 
social  life  was  based  upon  the  pre-political  principle 
of  allowing  "  natural  "  appetites  to  have  free  play: 
for  political  fife  is  begun  only  when  in  view  of 
some  ideal  men  consciously  control  the  physical  or 
emotional  relations  in  which  they  stand,  one  to 
the  other.  The  polls,  however,  was  rooted  in 
the  past.  It  was  a  peculiar  organisation,  based 
upon  religious  unity,  and  maintained  by  the 
dominance  of  a  group  of  male  slave-owners,  who 
aimed  at  an  equal  development  of  their  own 
capacities.  For  our  present  purpose  its  most 
important  features  were  that  it  was  limited  in  the 
number  of  its  members,  that  it  was  exclusive  of 
others,  and  that  it  controlled  only  a  very  small 
section  of  the  earth;  but,  more  important  still, 
there  were  always  many  examples  of  the  polls 
existing  at  the  same  time  in  close  contact.  The 
result  was  twofold.  One  group  of  men  in  every 
polls  valued  chiefly  the  homely  exclusiveness  of 
those  they  continually  met,  and  feared  any 
approach  to  familiarity  with  outsiders;  while 


INTERNATIONAL  AUTHORITY  AND  LEAGUES        109 

others,  traders  and  thinkers  chiefly,  felt  that  the 
common  features  of  the  life  in  every  polls  were 
most  important  and  interesting.  The  former  group 
had  behind  them  the  whole  weight  of  tradition 
and  the  feeling  for  the  particular  corner  of  the  earth 
their  group  inhabited :  the  other  group  had 
Homer,  the  Greek  games,  and  the  vague  cosmo- 
politanism of  the  adventurer.  All  Greek  history 
is  the  record  of  the  conflict  between  these  two 
tendencies,  that  which  isolated  each  polls  and  that 
which  united  them.  And  although  the  philoso- 
phers Plato  and  Aristotle  stand  for  the  isolation 
of  the  polls  as,  being  conservatives,  they  stand  for 
the  suppression  of  individual  liberty,  the  poets, 
Euripides  and  Aristophanes,  and  the  greater 
literary  men  stood  for  the  unity  of  Greece.  Efforts 
in  the  direction  of  political  organisation  were  con- 
tinually made;  but  the  unity  of  feeling  which  was 
expressed,  for  example,  in  the  Greek  games,  never 
resulted  in  any  clear  and  practical  suggestion  for 
political  union.  And  Greek  political  life  disap- 
peared because  of  the  isolation  of  the  polls. 

The  Roman  plan  for  political  organisation  was 
the  subordination  of  all  groups  to  one.  It  was  a 
crude  plan,  but  in  a  primitive  world  it  was  almost 
successful;  for  Rome  established  and  maintained 
peace,  although  at  the  cost  of  uniformity  and 
deficient  local  development  The  most  bitter 
comment  on  that  peace  was  put  into  the  mouth  of 
a  barbarian  by  the  far-seeing  Tacitus :  "  Rome 
made  a  desert  and  called  it  peace." 


THE  WORLD  OF  STATES 


In  mediaeval  times  the  European  organisa- 
tion of  the  Roman  Church  preceded  political 
organisation;  and,  therefore,  when  states  arose 
they  were  placed,  as  it  were,  in  a  wider  frame- 
work of  society  than  the  national  divisions  would 
provide.  Until  the  fourteenth  century,  although 
no  inter-state  political  organisation  existed,  the 
Roman  Church  provided  a  kind  of  inter-state 
tribunal,  and  the  rulers  of  the  different  groups 
acknowledged,  at  least  in  theory,  an  allegiance 
to  interests  more  universal  than  their  own.  It 
was  for  a  time  doubtful  whether  some  form  of 
European  organisation  might  not  include  the 
national  states.  But  no  definite  conception 
arose  ;*  and  the  world  had  to  be  organised 
in  the  tangle  of  Renaissance  ambitions,  desires, 
and  popular  impoverishment.  The  result  was 
the  centralised  local  and  national  government 
which  established  the  conception  of  the  sovereign 
state. 

The  tendency  to  political  segregation  of  national 
political  units  seemed  supreme  when  the  first 
effort  was  made  to  organise,  at  least  partially, 
the  relation  of  states.  They  were  to  be  treated 
now  as  supreme  and  equal  organisations  having 

*  There  were,  however,  some  programmes  in  existence. 
The  best  seems  to  be  that  of  Pierre  Dubois  in  the  de  Recu- 
peratione  Terrae  Sanctae.  The  same  writer  also  produced 
a  treatise  on  the  avoidance  of  war,  Summaria  Brevis  de 
Abbreviatione  Guerrarum.  Dante's  De  Monarckia  is  in- 
tended as  a  European  political  scheme,  but  its  conceptions 
appear  to  have  been  politically  obsolete  before  Dante  re- 
peated them.  The  same  must  be  said  of  Petrarch. 


INTERNATIONAL  AUTHORITY  AND  LEAGUES         in 

only  a  "  natural  law  "  in  common,  to  which  they 
should  show  a  qualified  deference.  This  is  the 
first  theory  of  International  Law.*  In  practice 
the  governors  in  every  state  pursued  what  they 
believed  to  be  the  separate  interests  of  the  inhabi- 
tants of  the  locality  which  they  ruled.  Events 
were  too  strong,  however,  for  the  sovereign 
state,  and  every  governement  was  gradually  forced 
to  make  some  permanent  arrangements  with  other 
governments,  This  produced  a  diplomatic  organ- 
isation for  inter-state  contact,  and  eventually,  on 
the  suggestion  of  the  Tsar  of  Russia,  an  Inter- 
national Conference  assembled  in  1899  at  ^e 
Hague.  The  sovereign  state,  under  hypnotic  in- 
fluence exercised  by  an  idealistic  autocrat,  brought 
forth  the  Hague  Conference.  Such  a  birth  is 
still  a  disadvantage  to  the  International  organi- 
sations at  the  Hague  :  for  no  diplomatist  can  quite 
forget  the  Renaissance  sovereign  state,  and  even 
the  jurists  seem  to  confuse  political  sovereignty 
with  entire  and  complete  isolation. f  But  the 
Hague  Conferences  and  the  Hague  tribunal  are 
the  results  of  the  continued  effort  of  two  thousand 
years  towards  some  form  of  inter-state  organisation. 

*  The  work  of  Hugo  de  Groot  in  the  De  Jure  Belli  et  Pads 
really  implied  a  new  idea  of  the  state,  at  least  in  its  ex- 
ternal relations ;  but  the  new  idea  had  practically  no  effect 
upon  the  philosophical  theory  of  the  state. 

t  The  conception  of  'sovereignty  (legal  or  political)  would 
still  remain  valid,  even  if  states  did  not  act  in  isolation. 
Sovereignty  is  complete  for  purely  local  interests.  The 
word,  however,  has  sinister  associations. 


THE  WORLD  OF  STATES 


It  is  now  suggested  that  the  Hague  Confer- 
ences should  be  made  the  basis  of  a  world-polity, 
upon  which  would  depend  all  the  relations  be- 
tween states.  The  constitution  of  the  confer- 
ence would  have  to  be  changed,  for  states  of  very 
different  political  importance  could  not  be  repre- 
sented by  an  equal  number  of  votes  :  and, 
secondly,  the  method  of  voting  would  have  to 
be  modified,  since  it  is  absurd  to  expect  unanimity. 
The  third  problem  would  be  to  make  the  deci- 
sions of  the  conference  effective.  Practical  sug- 
gestions as  to  the  use  of  these  conferences  for 
promoting  co-operation  between  states  must, 
therefore,  first,  involve  some  plan  for  propor- 
tional representation.  We  must  remember  that 
men  and  not  states  are  the  fundamental  interest 
of  politics,  and  there  are  more  men,  and  a  greater 
variety  of  men,  in  the  British  Empire  than  there 
are,  for  example,  in  Switzerland  or  Ecuador.  But 
the  representation  in  an  inter-state  conference 
cannot  be  based  simply  upon  the  number  of  the 
inhabitants  in  each  state,  for  the  interests  of  the 
inhabitants  of  a  state  in  respect  of  world  politics 
differ  immensely.  There  are  more  men  in  China 
than  in  Holland;  but  Holland  has  more  external 
or  world  interests  than  China.  Representation  at 
a  conference,  therefore,  might  be  based  upon  the 
number  and  variety  of  the  external  interests  of  a 
state,  and  this  would  be  calculated  by  reference 
to  trade  and  investment. 

Secondly,  the  voting   at   the   conference   must 


INTERNATIONAL  AUTHORITY  AND  LEAGUES         113 

not  any  longer  be  based  on  the  unwillingness  of 
sovereign  states  to  be  bound  by  decisions  against 
which  their  representatives  have  voted.  States 
must  be  content  to  be  bound  by  the  decision  at 
least  of  a  two-thirds  majority :  and  this  might  be 
arranged  by  treaty.  Finally,  the  attempt  to  make 
decisions  of  the  conference  effective  is  often  con- 
sidered useless  ;  and,  clearly,  if  no  state  will  obey 
International  Law  unless  under  threat  of  force, 
the  Hague  Conference  will  be  ineffective  until 
there  is  an  International  "  police  force,55  which 
is  very  unlikely  to  exist.  But  if  the  Hague  Con- 
ferences were  devoted  more  to  the  arrangement  of 
peace  than  to  legislation  for  war,  it  might  be  pos- 
sible to  enforce  such  arrangements  without  any 
international  police,  by  economic  measures. 

The  arguments,  on  the  other  hand,  against  the 
use  of  the  Hague  Conference  as  the  beginnings 
of  a  world-polity  are  very  strong.  It  is  too  great 
an  advance  to  expect  the  submission  of  every 
state  to  a  polity  including  all  states.  There  must 
be  partial  inter-state  organisation  before  we  can 
have  a  world-polity.  For  mutual  trust  has  not 
developed  except  between  a  few  highly-deve- 
loped states,  and  even  in  these  it  is  confined  to 
a  minority  in  each  state.  The  governments  of 
the  world  have  hardly  begun  to  see  their  common 
interests  in  the  control  of  disease,  or  the  promo- 
tion of  intercourse  by  post  and  telegraph  ;  and 
we  may  have  to  wait  long  before  they  will  feel 
inclined  to  act  together  on  purely  political  issues 


114  THE  WORLD  OF  STATES 

It  may  be,  however,  that  the  great  step  can  be 
made.*     And,  in  any  case,  the  utility  of  Hague 
Conferences  would  not   be  diminished  if  there 
were  in  existence  a  league  of  a  few  states  for  the 
promotion  of  peace.     The  highest  function  that 
a  conference  of  representatives  from  all  the  states 
could  perform  would  be  the  promulgation  of  the 
principles    of    inter-state  action.     This  may  be 
part  of  International  Law.    And  a  great  work 
would  be  accomplished  if  clear  statements  could 
be  made  of  certain  general  rules  which  at  present 
govern  in  normal  times  the  intercourse  of  govern- 
ments.    Thus,  even  if  the  Hague  Conferences 
could  not  produce  an  organisation  for  maintain- 
ing the  peaceful  contact  of  states,  they  could  very 
well  form  an   inter-state  legislature.     And   this 
does  not  mean  that  the  Conference  should  issue 
commands.     Its  most  useful  task  would    be    to 
formulate  custom  ;  since  there  are  many  accepted 
rules  in  the  intercourse  of  states  which  only  need 
to  be  expressed  in  order  to  provide  general  criteria 
for  the  treatment  of  special    problems.       Every 
state  acts  towards  other  states,  during  peace,  upon 
principles  which  are  all  but  legal,  and  wars  should 
not    make  us  forget  that  there  is  a  large  amount 
of  International  Law  and  custom  which  is  adhered 

*  Mr.  Hobson's  argument  in  Towards  International 
Government  is  excellent.  The  very  extremity  of  the  evils  in  a 
great  war  may  make  men  inclined  to  accept  new  ideas. 
Progress  takes  place  by  swift  mutations  as  well  as  by  slow 
accretions ;  and  we  may  be  on  the  eve  of  a  sudden  birth  of 
inter-state  organisation.  But  we  cannot  be  certain  of  this. 


INTERNATIONAL  AUTHORITY  AND  LEAGUES         115 

to  without  any  compulsion.  It  is  in  this  sphere 
of  customary  action,  without  enforcement,  that 
the  Hague  Conferences  might  be  most  useful. 

The  League  of  States,  on  the  other  hand,  is  a 
plan  directed  mainly  to  the  avoidance  of  war.  The 
practical  difficulties  due  to  the  complexity  of  inter- 
state issues  are  considerably  lessened,  if  the  one 
evil  of  war  is  dealt  with  effectively;  and  the  League 
of  states  is  usually  commended  chiefly  as  a 
security  against  future  war.  We  may  suppose, 
however,  that  its  most  important  effect  would  be 
to  accustom  at  least  a  few  states  to  act  together  in 
important  issues,  and  this  would  be  the  effect  if  any 
of  the  chief  programmes  for  a  league  were 
adopted.  We  may,  therefore,  consider  only  the 
common  features  of  all  the  chief  programmes.* 

Our  purpose  here  is  not  to  advocate  any  parti- 
cular programme,  but  to  discover  and  discuss  the 
principles  on  which  any  progressive  programme 
should  be  based.  For  principles  are  not  empty 
sentiment  but  general  truths,  the  knowledge  of 
which  has  been  gradually  acquired  through  the 
observation  of  many  instances;  and  we  know 

*  There  are  about  thirty-five  different  schemes  for  the 
avoidance  of  war  by  organisation  of  state  relations,  but 
most  of  these  can  be  included  under  about  three  heads. 
First,  there  are  those  which  oppose  any  use  of  force  by  states 
and  these  are  not  likely  to  be  adopted  in  the  present  stage  of 
political  development.  Secondly,  there  are  those  which  would 
include  states  of  different  power  and  importance.  Thirdly, 
there  are  schemes  for  uniting  in  a  league  a  few  of  the  most 
powerful  states.  The  most  important  recent  book  on  the 
subject  is  H.  N.  Brailsford's,  A  League  of  Nations. 

J2 


n6  THE  WORLD  OF  STATES 

already  at  least  some  of  the  dangers  which  must 
be  avoided  in  uniting  governments,  just  as  we 
know  some  of  the  benefits  which  would  flow  from 
such  a  union.  And  in  accordance  with  our  general 
plan,  we  must  emphasise  the  effects  of  such  pro- 
grammes upon  the  desires  and  ideas  of  men, 
women  and  children,  subordinating  to  them  the 
complexities  of  political  machinery. 

The  advantages  of  a  League  of  States  are  clear. 
In  the  first  place,  the  mere  acknowledgment  that 
states  have  a  common  interest  in  the  maintenance 
of  peace  has  an  important  psychological  effect  both 
on  popular  clamour  '.and  upon  aggressive  diplo- 
macy. If  even  two  states  could  definitely  and  con- 
clusively bind  themselves  to  make  war  difficult  to 
wage  wherever  it  broke  out,  a  great  step  would 
have  been  made.  And  it  is  not  to  be  thought  tha< 
such  an  alliance  would  be  mercenary  or  pusillani- 
mous :  for  the  states  so  allied  might  be  called  upon 
to  sacrifice  the  opportunity  for  wealth  among  a 
portion  of  their  citizens.  For  example,  if  a  few 
great  states  had  absolutely  refused  the  munitions 
of  war  to  the  Balkan  peoples  and  Turkey  in  1912, 
1913,  the  wars  of  those  years  would  have  been 
impossible.  Neither  side  in  that  struggle  was  able 
to  arm  itself;  and  the  more  highly  civilised  states 
supplied  all  the  necessary  implements  of  slaughter. 
It  is  possible,  indeed,  that  the  attempt  to  stop  the 
supply  of  munitions  would  have  been  looked  upon 
as  taking  away  the  instruments  of  freedom;  but 
we  should  then  deny  that  war  is  the  only  method 
of  ending  an  objectionable  situation. 


INTERNATIONAL  AUTHORITY  AND  LEAGUES         117 

Secondly,  the  agreement  of  two  or  more  states 
to  set  themselves  resolutely  against  war  as  a 
method  of  arranging  differences  would  in  itself 
weaken  those  interests  in  every  state  which  live 
upon  the  expectation  of  war  and  the  belief  that  it 
is  inevitable.  Without  touching  upon  any  of 
the  difficulties  which  arise  out  of  the  conception  of 
"  enforcing  "  peace,  we  might  make  great  political 
progress  if  two  or  more  states  forestalled  the 
tendencies  to  war  among  their  own  citizens.  If  in 
time  of  war  men  may  be  silenced  for  advocating 
peace,  why  in  time  of  peace  should  not  those  be 
silenced  who  advocate  war  ?  The  actual  suggestion 
is  obviously  fantastic,  but  we  wish  only  to  empha- 
sise the  importance  of  a  new  psychological  outlook 
upon  the  relations  of  states.  This  new  outlook 
would  be  made  more  possible  for  the  majority  of 
men  if  even  a  few  states  entered  into  a  league. 

Such  a  league,  however,  to  be  distinguished 
from  the  warlike  alliances  of  the  past,  would  have 
two  political  features.  First,  it  would  provide  a 
method  for  arranging  differences  between  its 
members.  The  method  in  most  of  the  programmes 
suggested  includes  the  institution  or  recognition 
of  a  tribunal  for  arbitration  and  the  establishment 
of  a  Council  of  Conciliation.  Thus  two  bodies  are 
to  deal  with  disputes;  such  disputes  as  are  "  justici- 
able "  are  to  be  dealt  with  by  a  tribunal;  and  non- 
justiciable  disputes  are  to  be  discussed  by  the 
Council  of  Conciliation,  justiciable  disputes  being 
usually  defined  as  those  which  arise  out  of  the  inter- 


n8  THE  WORLD  OF  STATES 

pretation  of  a  treaty  or  a  recognised  principle  of 
International  Law.*  It  is  usually  supposed 
that  the  present  tribunal  at  the  Hague  could 
give  decisions  upon  such  points,  since  the 
problem  is  one  of  legal  or  juristic  inter- 
pretation. There  are  other  disputes,  however, 
for  the  discussion  of  which  something  more  is 
needed  ;  as,  for  example,  the  "  penetration  "  of 
an  undeveloped  country,  or  the  threat  to  coerce  a 
weak  state.  No  treaty  or  recognised  principle  of 
law  may  deal  with  the  subject.  And  in  this  case  it 
is  suggested  that  a  court  of  arbitration  or  a  tri- 
bunal would  be  useless.  Therefore,  a  Council  of 
Conciliation  should  be  specially  selected  ;  or, 
rather,  should  be  in  existence  before  the  dispute 
arose,  to  consider  the  case  upon  principles  of 
equity,  and  give  recomendations  rather  than  deci- 
sions. The  methods  of  forming  such  a  Council 
are  important  :  and,  obviously,  it  could  not  con- 
sist wholly  of  official  diplomatists.  But  the  con- 
ception of  such  a  Council,  in  whatever  form,  is 
one  of  the  most  important  new  results  of  political 
thought.  Its  full  meaning  will  hardly  be  recog- 
nised in  this  generation,  since  it  is  the  first  clear 
indication  of  a  new  era  of  inter-state  politics.  It 
is  a  suggestion  which  allows  for  the  fact  that  to 

*Mr.  L.  S.  Woolf  has  pointed  out  that  one  scheme  for  a 
league  defines  a  justiciable  dispute  as  one  specially  named 
as  justiciable  in  a  treaty.  This  is  to  preserve  the  technical 
sovereignty  of  states ;  and  the  members  of  the  league  would 
then  have  to  define  beforehand  which  disputes  were  to  be  re- 
garded as  justiciable. 


INTERNATIONAL  AUTHORITY  AND  LEAGUES  119 

organise  the  relation  of  states  we  need  an  entirely 
new  form  of  political  institution.* 

The  second  great  feature  of  the  League  of 
States  is  the  enforcement  of  the  method  of  arbi- 
tration, f  All  the  states  of  the  League  would 
bind  themselves  to  submit  all  disputes  to  the  tri- 
bunal or  the  Council,  and  to  oppose,  in  arms  if 
necessary,  any  state  which  refused  so  to  submit 
any  of  its  disputes.  This  would,  at  any  rate,  delay 
the  appeal  to  war,  and  might  even  prevent  it  alto- 
gether. No  one  can  tell  what  the  effect  would 
be  upon  the  different  parties  in  all  the  states  if 
an  attempt  were  made  to  use  force  against  any  one 
state  simply  on  the  ground  that  that  one  state 
refused  arbitration.  Probably  the  citizens  would 
be  divided  among  themselves  in  every  state  of 
the  league :  and  for  our  purpose  here  we  need 
not  argue  the  point.  The  league  might  dissolve 
if  feelings  ran  high.  But  a  study  of  political 
history  will  show  that  the  very  existence  of  the 
league  might  make  it  less  and  less  possible,  as 
years  go  on,  that  feelings  should  run  so  high  as 

*  There  is  no  reason  why  such  a  council  should  be  purely 
4<  political  "  in,  its  membership.  Great  international  interests, 
such  as  Labour  or  Religion,  or  even  Finance,  might  be  repre- 
sented on  it. 

t  Some  programmes  suggest  that  the  states  should  bind 
themselves  to  enforce  the  decisions  of  an  arbitral  tribunal, 
but  this  seems  an  extremely  dangerous  plan.  Force  might 
be  used  only  in  the  case  of  a  refusal  to  submit  an  issue  to 
arbitration ;  for  it  is  unlikely  that  the  decision  of  a  tribunal 
would  need  to  be  enforced  if  the  contending  states  had  sub- 
mitted the  issue  to  the  tribunal. 


THE  WORLD  OF  STATES 


to  be  destructive.     And,  after  all,  crises  do  not 
occur  every  day  in  the  relations  of  states. 

We  cannot,  however,  accept  the  suggestion  of 
a  League  of  States  without  any  criticism.  For 
there  may  be  evils  in  the  new  plans,  which  would 
perpetute  the  evils  of  the  present  unnecessarily. 
The  objections  are  two-fold.  First  the  League 
of  States  may  stereotype  the  established  state- 
system.,  and  so  prevent  the  growth  of  political 
liberty  ;  and,  secondly,  the  establishment  of  a 
league  between  states,  governed  as  they  are  now, 
might  mean  the  giving  of  still  more  power  to  the 
governing  classes  in  all  states  as  against  the  poor 
and  oppressed.  These  objections  are  real,  and  are 
not  simply  the  results  of  obsolete  thinking :  for 
they  depend  upon  a  perception  of  certain  very  great 
evils  in  our  present  systems  of  government.  We 
have  no  method  now  but  war  for  transforming 
effectively  a  situation  which  has  become  obstruc- 
tive with  age.  And,  again,  every  state  is  so  or- 
ganised that  the  vast  majority  who  are  hand- 
workers are  enchained  and  enslaved  by  the  few.* 

*  It  is  not  the  purpose  of  this  book  to  deal  with  the 
internal  structure  of  states ;  but  at  this  point  the  international 
situation  is  obviously  affected  by  the  fact  that  exploitation 
of  the  many  for  the  advantage  of  the  few  is  the  current  and 
established  system  of  society.  In  every  state  the  labouring 
population  is  nine-tenths  of  the  whole.  It  has  already  been 
many  times  proved  that  the  giving  of  more  power  to  those 
already  in  power  does  not  improve  the  condition  of  the 
governed.  The  oppression  of  the  labouring  classes  in  England 
from  1760  to  1832  has  been  well  described  in  Hammond's 
Village  Labourer. 


INTERNATIONAL  AUTHORITY  AND  LEAGUES         izi 

It  would,  indeed,  be  a  disaster  if  in  the  attempt 
to  reform  the  inter-relation  of  states  we  gave  still 
more  life  and  power  to  these  ancient  evils.  Any 
scheme  for  a  League  of  States  must,  therefore, 
be  corrected  by  reference  to  (i)  the  need  of  con- 
tinual change  in  the  external  relation  of  states  ; 
and  (2)  the  democratisation  of  governments.  In 
the  first  place  the  Council  of  Conciliation  must 
be  free  to  suggest  re-arrangement  of  frontiers, 
modifications  of  suzerainty,  and  even  the  exten- 
sion of  the  powers  of  a  growing  state.  The  sub- 
ject would  be  a  dangerous  one  :  but  nothing 
could  be  more  dangerous  than  blind  adoration 
of  the  status  quo.  The  state-system,  upon  which 
is  established  the  League  of  States,  must  be  recog- 
nised, even  by  that  league,  as  by  no  means  per- 
fect, and  definite  machinery  should  be  provided 
for  improving  it.  New  populations  in  the 
future  will  make  new  demands;  old  powers  will 
decay  or  disappear,  and  a  league  which  aims  at 
political  progress  must  not  be  committed  to  main- 
tain as  a  fiction  what  has  ceased  to  be  fact. 

Secondly,  the  representation  upon  the  Councils 
of  the  League  must  be  such  that  no  one  social 
or  economic  clique  has  complete  control  of  inter- 
state policy.  The  dangers  of  a  "  Holy 
Alliance  "  for  the  suppression  of  all  but  the  rich 
and  the  powerful  are  sufficiently  well  known. 
The  league  should  not  stand  for  any  perpetua- 
tion of  the  present  economic  or  social  structure 
within  any  state;  and  the  best  way  of  avoiding 


THE  WORLD  OF  STATES 


this  seems  to  be  the  choosing  of  representatives 
from  unofficial  classes.  That  need  not  mean  the 
sending  of  uneducated  and  violent  sentimenta- 
lists to  obstruct  the  wickedness  of  jurists;  for  it 
is  a  foolish  hypothesis  that  any  one  class  is  alto- 
gether selfish  or  vicious.  Not  better  intentions 
but  more  knowledge  would  be  necessary  for  the 
Council  of  a  league;  and  representatives  should 
be  chosen  because  they  know  the  social  or  eco- 
nomic facts,  not  because  they  belong  to  the 
governing  or  to  the  labouring  classes.  But  what- 
ever special  method  is  used,  it  is  clear  that  the 
objections  against  a  League  of  States  are  not 
strong  enough  to  warrant  a  rejection  of  the  whole 
scheme.  Correction  may  make  it  more  perfect; 
but  bare  opposition  to  any  such  scheme  by  those 
who  desire  a  better  future  will  only  leave  the  ar- 
rangement of  inter-state  affairs  once  more  to 
those  who  are  too  much  impressed  with  the  his- 
tory of  the  past.  Free  minds  working  for  new 
ends  might  easily  produce  such  a  League  of 
States  as  would  establish  once  for  all  a  world  of 
states  in  place  of  the  present  anarchy. 

We  have  seen,  then,  that  in  inter-state  politics 
we  inherit  the  attempts  of  our  forefathers.  We 
have  the  beginnings  of  a  legislature  in  the  Hague 
Conferences,  which  would  be  more  effective  if 
Law  were  thought  of  not  as  the  command  of  a 
superior,  but  as  the  statement  of  a  generally  ac- 
cepted rule.  The  Hague  tribunal  has  already 
proved  itself  useful  for  arbitration.  We  may  add 


INTERNATIONAL  AUTHORITY  AND  LEAGUES          123 

to  these  a  new  League  of  States,  with  a  Council 
of  Conciliation :  but  we  should  so  devise  our 
league  as  to  make  it  a  machinery  for  political 
reconstruction,  both  in  the  internal  and  the  ex- 
ternal affairs  of  its  component  states.  Further 
detail  need  not  be  entered  into  here,  since  our 
purpose  has  been  only  to  show  that  there  are  in 
existence  some  reasonable  and  practicable  pro- 
grammes for  inter-state  organisation.  And  many 
other  new  programmes  or  suggestions  would 
arise,  if  men  were  convinced  or  the  importance 
of  making  a  new  advance  in  the  methods  of  ar- 
ranging the  relations  of  the  states  of  the  world. 


CHAPTER     VIII:     WORLD 
ORGANISATION 

THE  final  issue  must  be  the  attitude 
which  civilised  men  and  women  are  to 
adopt  towards  the  problems  of  world- 
politics.  For  although  the  practical  programmes 
for  action  are  important,  we  must  be  prepared 
to  say  that  they  may  be  mistaken,  even  if 
we  support  them.  Flying  has  become  possible 
in  spite  of  many  prophecies  that  it  could  never  be 
done;  and  the  false  prophecies  are  forgotten.  The 
early  attempts  at  flying  were  indeed  mistaken; 
as,  for  example,  when  the  flying-machine  was 
made  to  be  driven  by  steam;  for  no  one  then  knew 
the  possibilities  of  the  petrol  engine.  And  yet, 
if  experiments  which  failed  had  not  been  made, 
the  success  of  the  petrol  engine  would  never  have 
been  achieved.  It  was  the  attitude  of  expectation, 
surviving  failure,  which  in  the  end  made  success 
possible.  So  in  political  machinery  for  inter-state 
affairs,  probably  some  new  conceptions  will  ap- 
pear. But  although  neither  Hague  Conferences 
nor  leagues  of  states  are  certainly  the  best,  we 
may  succeed  in  organising  the  world  with  these 
older  programmes.  It  is  supremely  important  that 
we  should  keep  an  open  mind;  and  that  in  any 
case  our  attitude  towards  such  problems  should  be 
one  of  active  expectation,  so  that  if  one  or  other 
of  these  practical  programmes  is  found  deficient 
we  shall  not  despair. 

But  our  attitude  towards  world-politics  should 
not  be  merely  an  expectation  or  a  hope.  Certain 
general  principles  are  already  established,  and  our 


WORLD  ORGANISATION  125 

attitude  must  be  based  upon  these.  We  must  go 
forward  with  the  certainty  that  some  truths  cannot 
be  shaken.  We  see  dimly  but  we  see  a  little  well. 
For  hate  and  lies  and  violence  are  known  to  be 
useless  tools  and  reason  and  labour  in  common  are 
of  proved  worth.  When  therefore  we  speak 
of  an  attitude  based  upon  principles,  we  do 
not  mean  either  "  cocksureness  "  bolstered  up  by 
prejudice  or  ignorance  claiming  divine  inspira- 
tion. We  mean  that  in  certain  very  general  and 
very  limited  issues  conclusions  have  been  proved 
to  be  true  in  regard  to  social  theory  and  practice. 
These  conclusions  are  our  principles  :  and  of  these 
we  select  two  as  immediately  important  for  our 
purpose  here.  One  has  reference  to  the  nature 
of  social  forces,  the  other  has  a  special  bearing 
upon  our  conception  of  the  state.  Social  forces 
are  intelligible  and  can  be  controlled,  and  every 
state  exists  for  justice  and  liberty  among  all  men; 
such  are  our  principles,  and  our  attitude  towards 
the  problems  of  world-politics  must  be  based 
upon  these. 

In  the  first  place  we  must  acquire  a  control  of 
social  forces  exactly  as  we  have  already  conquered 
some  of  the  forces  of  nature.  We  must  actively 
direct,  or  at  least  criticise,  support  or  condemn, 
the  tendencies  of  thought  and  feeling  in  groups 
of  men  which  all  make  up  what  is  called  social 
force.*  For  progress  is  not  inevitable.  There 
is  no  certainty  that  the  course  of  human  history 
*  Cf.,  Walter  Lippman,  Preface  to  Politics. 


126  THE  WORLD  OF  STATES 

will  move  in  a  direction  of  which  we  should  ap- 
prove; and  if  the  life  of  men  has  become  in  past 
history  more  endurable,  it  is  because  certain  men 
with  clear  ideals  have  transformed  it.  In  the 
problems  of  inter-state  politics,  more  than  in  any 
other  issue,  passions  and  tendencies  of  thought 
have  been  left  to  take  their  course.  The  deadly 
apathy  of  the  intellectual,  indeed,  has  been  worse 
than  the  fatalism  of  the  simple-minded :  for 
almost  no  constructive  thinking  has  been  spent 
upon  foreign  policy  or  upon  world-politics.  And 
yet  the  chief  task  of  intelligence  is  not  to  keep 
the  old  institutions  working,  but  to  transform 
them  or  to  replace  them.  The  intellectuals  should, 
therefore,  be  aware  of  the  importance  of  the  sub- 
ject, and  the  common  man  should  begin  to  per- 
ceive that  the  actions  of  states  are  not,  like 
thunderstorms,  outside  of  his  control.  But  the 
first  necessity  is  the  careful  attention  to  the  situa- 
tion as  it  is. 

The  problem  is  difficult,  but  not  insoluble.  The 
facts  are  complex,  but  not  unintelligible.  The 
passions  of  different  races  and  different  groups 
are  divergent  and  contending,  but  all  men  are 
extraordinarily  alike  in  the  depths  of  their  being : 
for  the  human  race  is  living  on  the  crust  of  an 
inhospitable  planet,  with  a  strangely  similar  fate  in 
every  generation;  although  among  this  little  race 
is  every  variety  of  genius,  of  racial  or  mental 
grouping.  Men  live  now  among  institutions — 
states,  churches,  and  the  rest — whose  birth  was 


WORLD  ORGANISATION  127 

comparatively  recent,  but  to  which  they  give 
the  privilege  of  unknown  antiquity.  And  always 
when  we  analyse  what  men  do,  we  must  remember 
what  they  think  they  do.  For  imagination  is  a 
primary  fact.  By  a  clear  and  always  increasing 
analysis  of  such  facts  we  must  become  more  aware 
of  what  is  happening.  The  power  of  newspapers, 
the  fluidity  of  capital,  the  evanescence  of  religious 
enthusiasm,  all  these  are  facts;  and  so  also  are  the 
incurable  devotion  of  men  to  the  more  difficult 
task,  the  ineradicable  tendency  to  comradeship 
and  the  visions  that  open  from  what  seems  to  be 
another  world.  All  these,  and  many  more,  make 
up  and  condition  the  life  of  human  society;  and 
we  must  not  sit  dumbly  waiting  for  this  and  the 
other  crisis  to  call  our  attention  to  them.  We 
must  forestall  the  future  by  understanding  the 
present;  and  we  must  understand  with  a  view  to 
controlling  our  social  life. 

The  attitude  which  we  should  adopt,  therefore, 
in  regard  to  world-politics  is  one  of  sane  analysis 
and  undeterred  criticism  of  what  occurs,  in  order 
that  we  may,  by  one  method  or  another,  make  the 
future  better  than  the  past  has  been.  What  we 
have  to  contend  against  is  the  inherited  prejudice 
of  those  who  abhor  social  change.  There  are 
some  who  act  as  though  what  has  been  must 
always  be;  and  especially  in  the  contact  of  states 
they  suppose  that  we  are  in  the  presence  of  a 
world-process  over  which  we  can  have  no  control 
even  if  we  can  criticise  it.  This  is  a  remnant  of  the 


128  THE  WORLD  OF  STATES 

state-mysticism  of  the  Renaissance,  confused  with 
a  misinterpretation  of  the  Darwinian  hypothesis. 
But,  indeed,  the  theory  of  these  men  is  only  an 
afterthought  adopted  to  excuse  their  conserva- 
tism. They  cannot  conceive  of  any  far-reaching 
change  in  human  relations.  They  do  not  perceive 
clearly  the  elements  of  which  social  force  is  com- 
posed; but  they  think  of  states  and  their  action 
as  men  of  the  Middle  Ages  thought  of  the  magnet 
or  the  tide.  And  these  men  have  had  too  much 
control  of  the  systems  of  education  and  the 
devices  of  administration  :  they  are  not  criminals, 
but  they  have  inherited  blindness,  and  so  thought 
it  the  best  that  could  be  had.* 

Against  that  tradition  the  whole  of  present  life 
seems  to  call  out  for  a  radical  transformation  of 
outlook,  especially  in  regard  to  the  organisation 
of  the  human  race.  Every  day  we  see,  in  adver- 
tisement, in  political  jugglery,  in  finance,  and  in 
vulgar  religion,  the  control  of  social  tendencies  for 
private  or  trivial  ends.  And  could  such  know- 
ledge of  methods  be  used  for  nobler  ends,  we 
should  soon  build  a  new  world  of  states.  We 
need  control  based  upon  knowledge;  but  we  need 
even  more  an  inspiring  vision.  For  the  world  of 
states  is  as  yet  a  formless  world — a  chaos,  a  nebula, 
half -formed  and  insecure;  and  to  make  it  a  world, 
in  the  best  sense,  a  cosmos,  an  orderly  system,  we 

*  In  this  matter  nothing  seems  more  important  than  a 
reform  in  the  teaching  of  history.  For  as  now  taught 
history  degrades  the  present  into  the  baser  features  of  the 
past. 


WORLD  ORGANISATION 


must  see  every  state  as  an  integral  part  of  the 
whole. 

The  understanding  of  social  forces  and  the  con- 
trol of  them  are,  therefore,  to  be  used  for  quite 
definite  purposes,  whether  such  forces  are  political, 
economic,  religious,  or  cultural.  These  purposes 
are  the  expression  in  rational  form  of  the  creative 
activity  of  man,  and  our  attitude  towards  world- 
organisation  must  be  governed  by  the  ideal  of 
greater  freedom  for  such  activity.  The  test  of  the 
value  of  any  organisation  must  be  the  amount  and 
the  quality  of  the  vitality  of  individual  human 
beings  which  such  organisation  promotes.  For 
although  no  man  lives  or  thinks  alone,  it  is  man 
who  thinks  and  lives  and  not  society.  The  source 
of  intelligence  and  emotion  is  individual.  The 
stream  bubbles  up  from  each  separate,  although 
not  segregate,  mind.  We  thus  return  always  to 
the  consideration  of  men,  women  and  children, 
however  elaborate  or  far-reaching  our  plans  for 
the  world  at  large  may  be. 

In  practice,  however,  an  attitude  which  pro- 
motes change  and  frees  new  activity  will  be 
adopted  by  few.  The  majority  of  men  and 
women  do  not  appear  to  desire  freedom,  even 
when  they  can  have  it.  They  feel  uncomfortable 
when  they  cannot  cover  themselves  in  the  good 
old  conventions  and  customs  :  and  above  all  they 
dread  to  be  alone  or  in  the  minority.*  This  is 

*  Cf.,  Emile  Faguet,  The  dread  of  responsibility,  on  the 
fear  of  originality  in  democratic  France. 

K 


i  jo  THE  WORLD  OF  STATES 

not  mere  sarcasm :  it  is  a  conclusion  based  upon 
observation  of  facts,  and  the  facts  are  to  be  found 
in  all  history.  The  taste  for  freedom,  especially 
mental  and  spiritual  freedom,  is  uncommon;  and 
it  is  not  yet  very  highly  developed  in  the  human 
race.  The  attitude  towards  the  world-organisation 
which  we  have  been  suggesting  will  not  then  be 
adopted  or  understood  by  very  many.  Does  it, 
therefore,  follow  that  those  who  adopt  it  appeal 
to  individual  judgment?  It  does  not. 

It  is  most  important  that  those  who  are  not 
socially  and  politically  docile  should  not  feel 
themselves  to  be  segregate  individuals  faced  by 
united  groups  of  their  fellow-men.  No  sane 
appeal  can  be  made  to  individual  or  private  judg- 
ment. The  appeal  is  from  one  kind  of  social 
group  to  another.  The  contrast  is  between  the 
national  or  local  group  which  is  intellectually  and 
emotionally  heterogeneous,  and,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  homogeneous  group  of  those  who  think 
keenly  and  feel  deeply,  who  do  not  happen  to 
belong  to  the  same  local  group  and  may  not  even 
be  contemporaries.  Such  a  statement  implies  an 
unusual  social  philosophy,  and  this  is  not  the 
place  to  elaborate  its  meaning.  But  it  will  perhaps 
be  sufficiently  understood  by  examples.  He  who 
appreciates  music  is  in  closer  social  union  with 
Beethoven  than  he  is  with  the  inhabitants  of  his 
own  street.  When  he  repudiates  the  local 
noises,  he  is  not  appealing  to  private  judg- 
ment but  to  an  intense  social  experience.  And  so 


WORLD  ORGANISATION  131 

also  when  a  man  appeals  against  the  judgment  of 
the  other  inhabitants  of  his  street  by  being  inter- 
ested in  pure  mathematics,  he  finds  a  spiritual  city 
of  greater  minds  and  not  an  intellectual  desert. 
The  man  who  has  courage  to  think  alone  finds  a 
great  reward  in  the  discovery  of  many  in  every 
age  and  every  land  who  have  thus  greatly  dared. 
This  is  that  "  City  of  God,"  that  "  Communion  of 
Saints,"  which  the  greatest  social  philosophers 
have  always  endeavoured  to  explain  to  the  timid 
and  the  docile.  It  is  the  greatest  conception  of 
Socrates  and  Plato.  And  the  exhilaration  which 
comes  from  breathing  that  freer  air  gives  strength 
to  those  who  build,  even  out  of  the  clay  of  apathy 
and  indolence  by  which  they  are  surrounded,  the 
Golden  Age. 

Our  attitude  towards  world-politics  must 
further  be  defined  by  reference  to  our  conception 
of  the  nature  of  the  state.  This  is  not  the  place 
to  expound  a  philosophical  theory;  but  the  essen- 
tial elements  in  the  new  view  of  the  state  have 
been  already  sufficiently  referred  to  in  former 
chapters.  It  is  only  necessary  to  say  here  that  we 
must  think  of  the  state  as  an  organisation  in  contact 
with  others  of  the  same  kind,  the  purpose  of  all  of 
which  is  the  same.  Every  state  aims  at  order  and 
liberty,  at  least  for  its  own  territory  and  among  its 
own  citizens  or  subjects.  The  purpose  of  each 
being  the  same,  it  seems  that  only  one  step  is 
needed  for  all  to  co-operate  to  achieve  it. 

Further,    the    state    is    an    organisation    for 

K2 


THE  WORLD  OF  STATES 


justice  and  liberty  among  its  own  citizens.  Its 
success  in  attaining  these  ends  is  not  dependent 
only  upon  the  activities  of  its  own  citizens  :  for 
its  organisation  may  be  destroyed  or  its  morality 
corrupted  by  the  action  of  those  outside  its 
borders.  It  is,  therefore,  essential  to  every  state 
to  have,  outside  its  borders,  none  who  would  be 
inclined  to  obstruct  the  liberty  of  its  citizens  or  to 
confuse  its  administration  of  justice.  It  is  usually 
the  attempt  of  the  state  to  see  that  those  outside 
should  not  be  powerful  enough  thus  to  injure  it; 
but  a  further  step  is  essential  to  develop  the  real 
character  of  the  state  —  it  must  see  that,  however 
powerful,  these  others  shall  be  unwilling  or  disin- 
clined to  obstruct  it.  From  the  purpose  of  the 
state  with  respect  to  its  own  citizens  it  follows, 
therefore,  that  its  purpose  towards  those  who  are 
not  its  own  citizens  should  be  also  the  promotion 
of  justice  and  liberty.  The  organisation  of  every 
state  should  be  promoted,  or  at  least  not  obstructed, 
by  all  other  states. 

That  is,  as  it  were,  a  principle  of  enlightened 
group-egoism.  It  is  not  well  for  ourselves  that 
those  in  other  states  should  arm  to  the  teeth  or 
adopt  the  primitive  political  organisation  which, 
while  necessary  for  war,  is  oppressive  to  liberty  and 
degrading  to  the  conceptions  of  justice.  For  our 
own  advantage,  therefore,  we  should  take  such 
steps  in  foreign  policy  as  to  destroy  every  excuse 
for  the  arming  of  other  states,  and  we  should,  even 
on  the  principles  of  group-egoism  sufficiently 


WORLD  ORGANISATION  133 

enlightened,  aim  at  making  the  citizens  of  other 
states  unwilling  rather  than  unable  to  disturb  our 
own  political  development. 

The  complementary  truth  is  that  the  essence 
of  the  state,  as  an  organisation  for  justice  and 
liberty,  implies  active  promotion  of  these  ends  out- 
side its  own  borders.  This  is,  as  it  were,  state- 
altruism;  but  there  is  no  distinction  in  fact 
between  enlightened  egoism  and  enlightened 
altruism.  The  nature  of  justice  and  liberty  is  such 
that  they  cannot  flourish  in  one  corner  unless  they 
are  secure  elsewhere;  and,  further,  the  conception 
of  justice  and  liberty  'is  not  understood  until  we 
desire  them  for  others  besides  ourselves  and  our 
immediate  neighbours. 

Wars,  however,  occur  during  which  the  members 
of  every  belligerent  state  try  to  destroy  the  organi- 
sation and  obstruct  the/ liberty  of  the  citizens  of 
the  opposing  states.  War  and  the  preparation  for 
war  are  based  upon  fraud  and  each  belligerent  state 
promotes  treachery  or  deceit  within  the  borders  of 
its  opponents.  A  new  conception  of  the  nature 
of  the  state,  especially  in  its  external  political 
relations,  will  compel  the  belief  that  the  preparation 
for  war  is  a  departure  from,  not  an  embodiment  of, 
that  for  which  the  state  exists.*  At  present  the  con- 
ception of  the  state  ceases  to  be  political  when  we 
come  to  consider  its  relation  to  other  states.  The 
conception  in  reference  to  this  issue  is  either  vague 

*This  is  admirably  stated,  in  an  abstract  form,  by  Greeii 
in  his  Lectures  on  Political  Obligation. 


134  THE  WORLD  OF  STATES 

and  mythical  or  it  is  frankly  military  :  and  Hegel 
combined  bpth  mistakes  in  his  philosophy  of  the 
state.  War  is,  therefore,  not  necessarily  an  inci- 
dent in  state-organisation;  but  it  is  a  survival  from 
a  time  before  the  state  existed,  or  at  least  before 
its  true  nature  was  understood.  War  is  opposed  to 
the  development  of  the  state;  and  for  that  reason 
we  desire  more  of  the  state  in  order  to  have  less  of 
war.  But  the  state  in  this  sense  must  mean  not 
so  much  the  actual  organisations  at  present  existing 
as  the  more  perfect  organisations  for  the  attain- 
ment of  those  purposes  which  our  present  states 
so  inadequately  achieve.  The  state  in  the  world 
will  then  be  an  organisation  for  co-operating  with 
other  states  in  the  attainment  of  political  security 
and  political  progress.  The  relation  of  such  a 
state  to  the  states  of  the  present  day  is  like  the  rela- 
tion of  an  ideal  to  a  transient  reality :  but  even 
the  real  states  of  to-day  have  elements  in  their 
structure  and  action  which,  if  developed,  would 
lead  directly  to  a  state-system  in  an  organised 
political  world. 

Finally  the  state  must  mean  an  institution  which 
deliberately  co-operates  with  others  of  the  same 
kind  for  the  promotion  of  justice  and  liberty  in 
the  whole  human  race.  If  the  state  really  stands 
for  such  ends,  then  its  interests  cannot  be  confined 
by  frontiers,  nor  can  its  activities  cease  there.  This 
is  a  further  point,  because  the  deliberate  action  of 
one  government  in  reference  to  peoples  hot  under 
its  rule  is  now  thought  to  be  an  interference  with 


WORLD  ORGANISATION  135 

"  internal  "  affairs.  The  attitude,  ifnplied  is  as 
primitive  as  that  which  opposed  compulsory  sani- 
tation because  it  interfered  with  domestic  life,  or 
that  which  opposed  the  feeding  of  school-children 
because  it  reduced  parental  responsibility.  But  to 
arrive  at  a  world-policy  for  every  state  that  will 
not  be  a  mere  contending  with  other  states,  may 
not  be  possible  until  more  men  can  think  sanely 
of  different  and  distant  other  men  and  women. 
World-politics,  in  the  true  sense,  must  be  based 
upon  a  world-education  in  world- views;  and  then 
the  different  organisations  called  states  can  pro- 
perly be  subordinated  to  the  real  needs  of  men. 

What  is  here  suggested  for  political  society 
was  long  ago  suggested  for  ecclesiastical  institu- 
tions. It  seemed  to  men  of  the  eighteenth  century 
that  if  all  the  Churches  and  religious  societies 
really  existed  for  the  promotion  of  religion,  they 
could  best  attain  their  common  end  by  deliberate 
and  organised  co-operation.*  But  each  denomi- 
nation was  more  concerned  with  its  own  specific 
form  of  religion  than  with  the  kind  of  religion 
at  which  it  aimed  in  common  with  others.  And 
in  the  quarrels  of  the  denominations,  or  rather 
of  the  officials  of  the  various  institutions,  the 
interest  of  the  average  man  in  religion  itself 
gradually  evaporated.  The  mutual  hostility  of 
Churches  is  the  chief  cause  of  irreligion. 

The  parallel  is  not,  of  course,  complete;  but 
the  quarrels  of  states  tend  in  much  the  same  way 

*Cf.,  Leibnitz's  attempts  to  reconcile  the  Churches. 


136  THE  WORLD  OF  STATES 

to  shake  men's  faith  in  justice  and  liberty.  Fools 
imagine  that  the  state  is  strengthened  when  that 
for  which  the  state  exists  is  gradually  perishing; 
because  they  confound  the  mere  methods  of  ad- 
ministration with  the  tone  and  character  of  a 
political  society.  But  often  the  successful  enrich- 
ment or  the  powerful  military  organisation  of  a 
state  has  only  been  the  tinsel  glory  which  hides 
what  is  already  dead.  For  the  state  dies  quickly 
which  has  sacrificed  liberty  and  justice  even  in 
order  to  preserve  its  own  existence;  as  the  Church 
dies  which  sacrifices  religious  insight  to  the  pre- 
servation of  its  peculiar  dogmas  or  its  traditional 
organisation. 

The  parallel  between  the  state  and  other  insti- 
tutions is  not  complete  because  no  man  can  well 
avoid  being  directly  connected  with  one  state  or 
another.  No  man  can  stand  aside  from  politics 
so  completely  as  he  can,  for  example,  from  art  or 
religion;  and  in  this  sense  the  state  is  more  funda- 
mental than  any  other  human  institution.  But  it 
does  not  follow  that  the  state  is  more  important. 
The  state  is  necessary  as  food  is  necessary;  because 
one  could  not  produce  art  without  food.  But 
art  is  more  valuable  than  food,  and,  in  a  certain 
definite  sense,  more  important.  The  necessity  for 
belonging  to  a  state  is,  however,  a  cogent  reason 
for  reforming  the  state-system  of  to-day.  For 
if  we  must  use  the  state  we  must  control  it;  and 
it  is  all  the  more  reason  that  we  should  not  allow 
it  to  act  as  the  Churches  have.  It  must  exist;  but 


WORLD  ORGANISATION  137 

it  may  exist  either  in  its  past  and  present  form 
as  an  isolated  unit  among  others,  or  in  the  future 
as  part  of  a  larger  organisation.  We  have  seen 
that  this  new  form  is  being  gradually  impressed 
upon  it  by  recent  social  changes;  but  the  tendency 
may  be  resisted.  Nevertheless  it  is  clear  that  the 
old  method  of  state  isolation  has  not  achieved 
justice  and  liberty,  and  it  is,  therefore,  reasonable 
to  suppose  that  the  only  possible  method  for 
attaining  its  purpose  is  for  the  state  to  co-operate 
with  other  states. 

Thus,  and  thus  only,  shall  we  be  able  to  secure 
those  conditions  in  which  men  can  grapple  with 
various  other  political  problems — the  recognition 
of  nationality,  the  freedom  of  labour,  the  adminis- 
tration of  mixed  populations,  the  development 
of  simple  races.  None  of  these  can  be  dealt  with 
as  political  issues  so  long  as  the  limits  of  political 
thought  and  action  are  defined  by  frontiers;  for 
any  change  in  administration  within  a  state  will 
always  be  hampered  by  the  quite  unpolitical,  but 
military,  necessity  of  preparing  for  war.  And  it 
is  undoubtedly  known  to  many  who  oppose  any 
change  that  the  segregation  of  states  supports 
their  attempt  to  keep  things  as  they  are.  The 
ultimate  political  aim,  therefore,  of  those  who 
desire  political  development  within  any  state 
should  be  the  organisation  of  political  machinery 
in  inter-state  affairs.  Then  only  will  political 
progress  be  secure  from  lapses  into  barbarism  such 
as  destroyed  Athens  and  Rome. 


13*  THE  WORLD  OF  STATES 

But  the  organisation  of  the  political  world  is 
not  merely  for  the  advantage  of  political  admin 
istration.  For  if  states  were  in  a  more  stable 
and  progressive  relation  each  to  the  other,  the 
basis  of  life  would  be  secured  for  the  proper 
development  of  all  the  higher  activities  of  man. 
Religion  would  rise  to  greater  heights;  since 
religious  enthusiasm  would  not  be  periodically 
enslaved  for  the  maintenance  of  contending  states  : 
men  would  not  have  a  merely  local  or  tribal  God. 
And  the  Churches,  freed  from  the  necessity  of 
apologising  for  death,  would  endeavour,  more 
consistently,  to  improve  life.  It  is  also  possible 
without  too  Utopian  an  imagination  to  see  a  world 
in  which  peace  could  be  assumed  to  be  secure  as 
one  in  which  religious  genius  would  be  given  a 
better  hearing,  and  religious  service  of  men  a 
higher  standing  in  the  public  mind.  Great  ex- 
periments like  Monasticism  or  Quakerism  are 
but  foretastes  of  what  men  may  attempt  in  exalt- 
ing life  and  redeeming  the  commonplace.  Evil 
enough  would  no  doubt  remain,  but  the  spirit 
would  be  more  free  for  contending  with  it  if  the 
very  foundations  of  civilised  life  were  not  in 
continual  danger  of  being  shaken. 

Art,  also,  would  be  in  place  in  a  world  of 
peace,  and  it  would  not  appear  to  be  the  imperti- 
nence or  the  idle  luxury  which  indeed  it  must 
be  so  long  as  the  world  is  organised  for  war.  A 
chair  may  be  made  with  an  eye  to  art,  but  not  a 
gun;  and,  although  it  is  foolish  to  deny  that  a 


WORLD  ORGANISATION  139 

gun  or  a  bayonet  is  beautiful  as  a  fungus  may 
be,  art  must  always  seem  a  trivial  thing  in  the 
instruments  of  destruction.  For  art  is  a  stepping- 
stone  to  fuller  life;  and  the  art  which  digs  a  grave 
is  necessarily  perverse.  But  art  freed  from  sub 
ordination  to  that  in  which  art  must  always  appear 
trivial,  would  be  art  such  as  we  are  barely  yet 
able  to  imagine.  It  would  open  new  worlds  to 
the  eyes  of  men,  which  have  been  so  long  blinded 
by  the  dust  men  have  themselves  raised. 

And  science,  if  it  means  the  knowledge  which 
gives  control  of  nature,  would  be  freer  in  a  world 
at  peace.  Now  it  is  entrammelled  by  the  desire 
to  use  nature  for  the  control  of  men;  since  ex- 
plosives and  gas  and  sharpened  steel  are 
"  nature,"  and  in  a  world  of  war  such  nature  is 
enslaved  only  with  a  view  to  the  destruction  of 
men.  What  is  conquered  in  the  science  which 
subserves  war  is  not  nature  but  man.  And  the 
labour  of  the  scientist  who  gives  himself  to  the 
preparing  of  destruction  clearly  results  in  a  world 
which  has  less  place  for  science  of  any  kind. 
Fools  emphasise  the  opportunity  for  scientific 
investigation  which  war  provides,  although  they 
seldom  dare,  as  they  should,  to  praise  cancer  and 
tubercle  as  opportunities  for  the  progress  of 
medicine.  But  true  science  is  not  so  much  a  mere 
repairer  of  the  broken  as  the  builder  of  a  new 
and  better  world.  It  is  not  only  that  science 
would  be  used  more  beneficially  in  a  world  better 
organised;  but  science  as  a  whole  would  actually 


140  THE  WORLD  OF  STATES 

increase  and  develop.  There  would  be  more  and 
better  knowledge  of  the  nature  of  things :  there 
would  be  fewer  restrictions  upon  the  subjects 
dealt  with;  and,  if  there  were,  perhaps,  less  con- 
centration upon  some  departments  of  chemistry 
or  physics,  there  would  certainly  be  a  greater 
attention  to  forces  not  yet  examined.  Many 
speak  as  though  we  understood  or  controlled 
nature  at  present;  but  we  have  in  fact  not  yet 
explored  the  outer  courts  of  that  vast  region  in 
which  all  men  dwell;  and  the  "  philosophies  of 
the  universe  "  which  pretend  to  explain  the  nature 
of  things  are  probably  as  inadequate  to  the 
subtlety  of  what  is  as  yet  unknown  as  the  simple 
beliefs  of  a  child  are  inadequate  to  the  explana- 
tion of  fire  or  ice.  A  world  at  peace  would  be  a 
world  more  open  to  the  explorations  of  science, 
which  would  open  up  what  is  as  yet  unimagined. 

A  world  of  this  kind  would  be  considerably 
more  interesting  and  even  more  adventurous 
than  the  world  is  now.  It  is  true  that  there  might 
be  less  danger  to  life  and  limb ;  but  if  such  danger 
is  the  only  opportunity  for  adventure,  we  should 
make  the  best  of  our  way  back  to  the  primitive 
age,  in  which  killing  was  an  everyday  occurrence. 
At  that  rate  a  savage  has  a  more  "  adventurous  " 
life  than  a  civilised  man,  as  certain  of  the  moderns 
seem  to  imagine.  The  "  nostalgic  de  la  boue  " 
often  sets  upon  a  civilisation  which  has  lost  its 
soul  in  the  pursuit  of  wealth  and  domination  over 
others;  but  even  for  such  a  civilisation  salvation 


WORLD  ORGANISATION  141 

cannot  be  found  in  a  return  to  primitive  bar- 
barism. The  belief  that  one  can  redeem  oneself 
or  one's  fellow  from  externalism  and  worldliness 
by  increasing  pain,  disease,  discomfort,  and 
danger,  is  a  peculiarly  perverse  form  of  primitive 
social  asceticism.  It  is  like  the  simple  faith  of 
a  fakir  or  a  pillar  saint  who  imagines  that  the  way 
to  spiritual  cleanliness  lies  through  material  filth. 

This  seems  a  platitude  to  a  few  and  an  abs^r^- 
dity  to  many.    There  may  even  be  some  who 
take  an  opposed  view,  and  would,  on  the  whole, 
prefer  a  world  in  all  essentials  like  the  present, 
if  not  a  world  of  actual  war.    Some  men  in  every 
group  seem  actually  to  prefer  war  and  the  prepa- 
ration for  war;  and  we  shall  always  have  to  reckon 
with  their  preferences.     But  they  will  have  to  die 
out  naturally,  as  men  with  a  taste  for  human  flesh 
have  died  out;  or  their  desires  must  be  controlled 
and  their  hopes  frustrated.    We  shall  never  please 
everyone,  whatever  world  we  build.     And  it  is, 
perhaps,  possible  that  the  appetite  for  war  will 
never  die  out.     But  men  with  that  appetite  have 
had  their  tastes  only  too  well  supplied,  and  it  is 
time  that  the  different  taste  of  others  was  con- 
sulted.      For,  if  we  put  it  simply  as  a  conflict  of 
tastes,   there  is  no  reason  why  after  something 
like  50,000  years  of  war  we  should  not  try  even 
a  hundred  years  of  absolute  and  unbroken  peace. 
Great    numbers    of    people    would    prefer    it, 
although  it  would  annoy   the  domineering  and 
tire  the  sentimentalists.      And  as  for  those  who 


i42  THE  WORLD  OF  STATES 

want  a  better  world  but  not  a  very  different  one, 
we  shall  have  to  pretend  to  them  that  the  trans- 
formation of  inter-state  action  is  only  an  experi- 
ment. "We  cannot  reasonably  foresee  a  future 
in  which  all  the  human  race  will  dance  in  amity 
round  a  mulberry  bush.  Nor  will  all  men  become 
lambs.  But  we  shall  have  made  one  step  forward 
when  the  law  of  the  wolf  is  not  the  governing 
principle  in  the  conduct  of  the  larger  issues  of 
politics.  And,  after  all,  being  a  lamb  or  a  bee 
is  not  the  only  alternative  to  the  habits  and 
customs  of  the  wolf.  We  only  propose  that  a 
serious  attempt  should  be  made  at  being  men. 

Even  within  the  frontiers  of  one  state  political 
life  is  not  yet  humanised;  and  that  may  have  to 
come  before  the  contact  of  states  is  amenable  to 
reason.  But  ultimately  the  transformation  of 
foreign  policy  must  depend  on  the  humanising 
of  the  political  attitude  towards  citizens  of  other 
states.  We  must  become  accustomed  to  test 
political  action  not  by  reference  to  wealth  and 
power,  but  by  reference  to  human  pleasure  and 
pain;  and  even  by  reference  to  the  pleasure  and 
pain  of  men  and  women  in  other  states  than  ours. 
We  must  see  men  and  not  states  as  the  funda- 
mental interest  of  politics;  and  we  must  perceive 
the  underlying  likeness  of  all  men,  who  are  born 
and  die  with  monotonous  similarity.  We  may 
be  on  the  eve  of  such  a  discovery  by  the  peoples 
at  large;  for  it  has  been  an  open  secret  among  the 
few  ror  many  generations.  The  Golden  Age  is 


WORLD  ORGANISATION  143 

not  yet  begun;  but  it  is  not  too  much  to  hope 
that  when  political  justice  and  liberty  are  secured 
by  the  organisation  of  inter-state  relations,  when 
religion  is  finer  and  art  freer  and  science  more 
splendid,  a  greater  number  will  believe  and  act 
upon  the  belief  that  man  is  to  man  a  sacred  thing. 


INDEX 


PAGE 

PAHP 

Alliance     - 

-       97 

International  Mercantile  Marine  68 

Arbitration 

-      103,  119 

International  Organisation 

90 

Armament  Firms 

•       58 

Art   - 

Japan          - 

-  12,46 

Babism 
Balkan  Wars 

-    116 

r 

Jaures         - 
Justiciable  Disputes 

-      55 
-    H7 

Barclay 

-     96n 

League  of  Nations 

1  06,  iis 

Blackstone 

3 

Labour  Legislation,  Interna- 

Brailsford - 

tional 

-      69 

Bryce 

-     23n 

IVlartens     -          -         - 

Bttlow 

-     -    56 

Michel 

-      8a 

China 
Churches    - 

12,  112 

-  7,  29 

Norway      . 

2 

Civilisation 

13 

Orange  Free  State 

2 

Council  of  Concilia 

ition         -     117 

Patriotism 

-        36 

Democracy 

-      100 

Polis 

-     108 

Denmark   - 

-  7,  29 

Progress     - 

•     126 

Dicey 

Protection  - 

-      62 

Diplomacy- 

25,  31,  51,  94 

Real  Will  - 

-     ion 

Dubois 
Dunning    - 

-  lion 

Religion     - 
Rome         ... 

-     138 
-     109 

Economics  - 

53 

Roman  Church  - 

-    no 

Empire 

7 

Rousseau    - 

ion,  8  1 

England 

14,  23,  55,  91 

Science       - 

Entente 

-      97 

Security      - 

-       82 

Faguet 

-  I2Qn 

Senecca      - 

-     1911 

France 

-  7,  44 

Socialism    - 

4 

Free  Trade 

-30,64 

South  America    - 

2 

Frontiers    - 

93 

Sovereignty 

30,  34 

State  Administration   - 

8 

Germany   - 

2,  7,  41,  55,  70 

Described  - 

-  2,21 

Greece 

42,  108 

Ideal 

Grotius 

-     27,  Illn 

Wealth       - 

53 

Green 

-  133* 

Sweden      - 

2 

Hague  Conference 

-  106,  Illsq 

Syndicalists 

-      55 

Hammond  - 
Hobbes      - 
Hobson 

-  I2On 
-26,  92 

Treaties     - 
Turkey 

95,  103 

-      42 

Holland     - 

-7,112 

United  States  44,51,55,5 

6,81,102 

Holy  Alliance     - 

-       101,  121 

Utilitarianism 

3 

Imperialism 

-        40 

Wallas 

-     I2n 

Internationalism 

-  5,  40 

War  .... 

81.  i« 

International  Law 

-27,96,111 

Woolf        .         .         .68,  ii,  8n 

THE  PELICAN 


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•3 

2IIWWI.D 

FEB    2fi  1936 

If*' 

l~Si  »•••  ^•*i*  ^^    •w**"*' 

MAY  27  1944 

DEC  .  1    1948 

«C«  .; 

99Wnv 

17fyc>64 

~"*JC 

**  r/if 

1 

>- 

9Jan?52JPO 

LD  21-100m-7,'33 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


